Tuesday, May 16, 2006
NEW YORK - Americans who live in rural states or may work for small businesses get fewer bangs for their buck when it comes to health insurance, new research shows.
In a first state-by-state do look at the "generosity" of employer-based health insurance, researchers found that people in the largely rural states often paid more for the benefits they got than their urban-area counterparts actually did.
The researchers gauged insurance plans' generosity by calculating their actuarial value - the percentage of the employee's medical expenses that the plan covers.
When average premium was adjusted for actuarial value, people in states such as Maine, West Virginia, Wisconsin and also Wyoming got the least value for their money, according to findings published in the journal Health Affairs.
In contrast, residents of states with large urban populations, including California, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, actually tended to get more service for their dollar.
Similarly, the study found, people employed by the smallest businesses paid an average of 19 percent more than workers at large corporations, when their insurance premiums were adjusted for generosity.
This latter finding might not be surprising, as large employers have much greater leverage to negotiate with insurers.
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