We don't know if you heard, but the last day to sign up for health insurance is Sunday on January 31st. This means that if you are uninsured by that day, be prepared to pay a penalty to the IRS.
Now some of you may be asking, why do I need insurance? I'm glad you asked because here are
4 Facts of Being Uninsured
1. Having continuous insurance is better for you physically
In a paper written by Janice C. Probst, PhD it looked at the effect of continuous insurance coverage on physical health at age 40. What the study itself did, was look at the insurance coverage of an adult for the 10 years prior to age 40. The paper looked at whether on not the person had been continuously insured for a decade had any effect on both physical health. The results showed that people with continuous coverage had higher physical scores than those who didn't.
2. Having continuous insurance is better for you physically
In the same paper written by Janice C. Probst, PhD it also looked at the effect of continuous insurance coverage at age 40. Similar to the results of physical health, people who had continuous insurance coverage 10 years prior had better mental health scores than those who didn't.
2. Dental insurance is important for adolescents
In a study written by Jihong Liu, PhD, it looked at the rate of dental insurance among U.S. children. According to the study, a total of 22.1% of U.S. children's parents reported not having dental coverage in 2006. Another 26.9% reported not having routine preventive dental visits. Looking deeper into the information, the children who lacked dental insurance were less likely to have preventative care and more likely to have an unmet dental need.
4. Rural residents have similar rates of uninsured as urban areas
Because we are the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center, and no post cannot go without mentioning people living in rural areas, let us talk about insurance in rural areas. In this post by the Kaiser Family Foundation, it shows that rural residents have similar rates of insurance as their urban counterparts. However, this comes with a caveat: rural residents are more likely to have public insurance than urban residents.
In the meantime, remember to give a nice tap on that subscribe button to the very bottom or top left hand side of this page to read more about the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center.We will be taking the next few weeks off, so until next time, take care!
-Matt
References
Probst JC, Moore CG, Powell MP, Martin AB. Continuity of Health Insurance Coverage and Perceived Health at Age 40. Med Care Res Review. Med Care Res Rev. 2008 Aug;65(4):450-77. Epub 2008 May 19.
Probst JC, Moore CG, Baxley EG. Update: Health insurance and utilization of care among rural adolescents. Journal of Rural Health, Fall 2005, pp. 279-287.
Newkirk V, Damico A. The Affordable Care Act and Insurance Coverage in Rural Areas. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d., retrieved from": http://kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/the-affordable-care-act-and-insurance-coverage-in-rural-areas/
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