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Health Benefits Mandates and Their Potential Impacts on Racial/Ethnic Group Disparities in Insurance Markets

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Abstract

Addressing racial/ethnic group disparities in health insurance benefits through legislative mandates requires attention to the different proportions of racial/ethnic groups among insurance markets. This necessary baseline data, however, has proven difficult to measure. We applied racial/ethnic data from the 2009 California Health Interview Survey to the 2012 California Health Benefits Review Program Cost and Coverage Model to determine the racial/ethnic composition of ten health insurance market segments. We found disproportional representation of racial/ethnic groups by segment, thus affecting the health insurance impacts of benefit mandates. California’s Medicaid program is disproportionately Latino (60 % in Medi-Cal, compared to 39 % for the entire population), and the individual insurance market is disproportionately non-Latino white. Gender differences also exist. Mandates could unintentionally increase insurance coverage racial/ethnic disparities. Policymakers should consider the distribution of existing racial/ethnic disparities as criteria for legislative action on benefit mandates across health insurance markets.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the California Health Benefits Review Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Science, California State University Fullerton, 800 N. State College Boulevard, Fullerton, CA, 92831, USA

    Shana Alex Charles

  2. Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Ninez Ponce

  3. Department of Family and Community Medicine, UC Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Dominique Ritley & Joy Melnikow

  4. School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Sylvia Guendelman

  5. Center for Healthcare Policy, UC San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

    Jennifer Kempster

  6. California Health Benefits Review Program, Oakland, CA, USA

    John Lewis

Authors
  1. Shana Alex Charles
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  2. Ninez Ponce
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  3. Dominique Ritley
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  4. Sylvia Guendelman
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  5. Jennifer Kempster
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  6. John Lewis
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  7. Joy Melnikow
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shana Alex Charles.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Charles, S.A., Ponce, N., Ritley, D. et al. Health Benefits Mandates and Their Potential Impacts on Racial/Ethnic Group Disparities in Insurance Markets. J Immigrant Minority Health 19, 921–928 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0436-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0436-9

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