on investigated by Hahn and Flood (1995, pp. 41-59) is that having any type of health care insurance is associated with higher levels of general health than those characterizing people with no health insurance of any type. The second assumption investigated is that public welfare-based health care insurance is associated with higher levels of general health than those characterizing people with no health insurance of any type.
Hahn and Flood (1995, pp. 41-59) found that having full, private health insurance is associated with levels of general health that are marginally higher than those characterizing people with no health insurance of any type, but that people with no health insurance of any type are characterized by substantially higher levels of general health than those characterizing people with public welfare-based health insurance. On the surface, these findings appear to state that access to private health care insurance produces general health outcomes that are superior to public welfare-based health care insurance.
Digging deeper in the research results of Hahn and Flood (1995, pp. 41-59), however, provides support for a different conclusion. The portrait usually painted of the individual with no health insurance of any type is that of the working poor with not enough money to pay for private insurance, yet with an income too high to qualify for public welfare-based insurance. In the National Medical Expenditure Survey sample used in this research, however, the mean family income of the group with no health insurance of any type was far above the level of the working poor. Thus, the reason underlying the higher levels of general health among this group likely is more attributable to income levels than to the presence or absence of health care insurance.
Managed care is a program type that proponents claim ensures appropriate care for a wide range of medical treatments through the application of techniques such...