| On average, Americans without health insurance have worse health outcomes than those with insurance. Whether this is due to the failure of the uninsured to seek out health services or a disparity in the provision of health services when sought by the uninsured is not well understood. The success of current policies, which focus predominantly on decreasing the numbers of uninsured, may turn on whether these disparities arise out of differences in patient preferences for health care, or inequality in physician and institution-level practices.;This study analyzes the effect of supply-side factors in inequality of health care by focusing on four different types of health care services provided at outpatient department clinics. After analyzing data collected under the National Ambulatory Health Care Survey from 2006 through 2009, this study concludes that supply-side factors play a role in health care service inequalities. The results demonstrate that the uninsured are less likely than insured patients to receive health care services, particularly high-cost services. The results also suggest that there is a disparity in the provision of preventative services at the institutional level that may not be ameliorated by the short-term reduction in the number of uninsured persons. This study did not confirm that doctors take patients' ability to pay into account when prescribing drugs or referring patients to specialists. |
