Effects of health insurance on non-working married women's medical care use and bed days at home

Abstract

Background: This study examines whether bed days are alternative methods to medical care use for treating a particular illness. If bed days at home are considered as an alternative to medical treatment, then medical care use and bed days at home should be influenced by an individual's health insurance status.

Method: This study uses data from the 2003 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) on medical care use and bed days at home for each contracted illness of non-working married women.

Results: The results suggest that the health insurance status of non-working married women has considerable influence on their choice between medical care use and bed days at home. In addition, those with health insurance are more likely to use medical care and less likely to use bed days at home, but they tend to avoid the simultaneous use of medical care and bed days at home.

Conclusions: In contrast to previous studies' findings indicating that absences from work and medical care use among working males may be complements, this study's results for non-working married women without health insurance suggest that they use rest and medical treatment as substitutes, not complements.

Figure 1

Percentage of nonpriority medical conditions of non-working married women for each combination of medical use and bed days at home.

Figure 2

Direction of health insurance effects.