WASHINGTON, April 9 (UPI) — U.S. adults who are on Medicaid have significantly worse health than those covered by an employer or union, a survey indicates.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index of about 28,000 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 3 to March 1 found more than 3-in-10 adults on Medicaid were obese, 22 percent were being treated for depression, and 24 percent were being treated for high blood pressure.
The survey also found Medicaid recipients struggled disproportionately with asthma and diabetes.
Due to the nature of what allows an individual to receive Medicaid — they must be low income or disabled — it was not particularly surprising this group was in such relatively poor health because research has long-shown the link between poverty and poor health, Gallup said.
During the Jan. 3 to March 1 timeframe, Gallup estimated 4.5 percent of Americans age 18 and older had Medicaid as their primary source of health insurance, while 18 percent mainly relied on Medicare, 3.6 percent were on a military or veteran plan and 44.5 percent on an employer-provided plan. Another 11 percent said they have some other source of health insurance and 17 percent had no health insurance.
Thirty-six percent of adults whose primary health insurance source was Medicaid said they smoked.
Overall, the survey’s margin of error was 1 percentage point, but for the Medicaid section, the margin of error was 4 percentage points.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
This country has to seriously change the vehicle in which care is available. Too often we treat the symptoms of disease, when access to basic preventative care can prevent the disease in the first place.
Many of these low income women with children were able to get food through the WIC program. I knew someone who was an RN who worked for that program for many, many years. The women got their blood pressure checked, got themselves and their children checked over if needed, nutritional advice, and lots of other free stuff and advice, including food, but it never did much to prevent obesity or promote healthy living in the long term. They could have just as well had some yahoo hand out the free food and skip all the expensive parts of administering the program.
Part of preventative care is not just handing out food and checking BP and weight. We have to change mindsets as well on the importance of healthy personal habits. Also, the medical community has some who hand out the pills and collect the money without serious interaction with the person receiving the “care”. It’s like a puppy mill.
This is a worthless report. 33% of the people are obese, 24% have high blood pressure (duh), 36% smoke. What kind of B.S. is this. These people are all low income and don’t have the money to eat right. Where is the surprise here.