Presents statistics by insurance status for the top 50 diagnoses & top 50 procedures in U.S. hospitals, based on a nationwide administrative database from 1993. Results are presented for privately insured, Medicare, Medicaid, & self-pay patients; all other patients; & all patients combined. This info. can be used as a starting point for more in-depth analyses aimed at assessing differences in the process of care & outcomes by insurance status. The study sample consists of 6,538,976 discharges from 913 hospitals in 17 states. Charts & tables.

Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

Covers: the emergence of managed behavioral health care; assess. of outcomes and assess. of performance; key factors in managed care, including risk adjust., workforce competencies, and rural serv.; population-based analyses for populations who are seriously mentally ill and severely emotionally disturbed and for costs incurred through Medicare, Medicaid, and private sector insur. plans. National stat. on mental health org's., mental health serv. in jails, the role of neighborhood factors in relation to prevalence of depressive disorders and the dist. of mental health providers, and the character. of the current mental health work force.