Who Benefits?

Minority and lower-income healthcare consumers are less likely to take advantage of mental health and prescription benefits than white and higher-income consumers, according to a study published today by Duke University law professor Barak Richman (photo at left).

The study, Insurance Expansions: Do They Hurt Those They Are Designed to Help?, appears in the Sept. 11 edition of the journal Health Affairs (subscription required). It examines the use of mental health and pharmaceutical benefits by employees who have identical insurance benefits, including equal co-payments.   

Richman finds that low-income and minority individuals did not use these insurance benefits as often as their white and higher-income co-workers.  As a result, insurance companies disbursed more healthcare dollars to whites and higher-income individuals, leading to a likely wealth transfer from nonwhites to whites and from low-income to high-income individuals, Richman said.

rb