Access to Health Care: Uninsured

Fundamentally, access means the ability of a person to obtain needed medical services from hospitals, physicians, and other sources. Health insurance plays a critical role in access to medical care because insurance is the major source of payment to the providers of medical services. At least theoretically, the consumers of medical services will be responsible to pay out of pocket unless they have insurance coverage to pay for those services. A person's ability to obtain needed medical care by using health insurance assumes these three factors: (1) The services that an insured person is seeking are available, (2) those services can be obtained at the time the need arises, and (3) the providers are willing to accept the amount of payment in return for the ...