Center for Studying Health System Change

Table 1. Percent Who Reported Difficulty Obtaining Medical Care

	Percent who reported difficulty obtaining medical care
U.S. population	16.2
Insurance status
Medicare	9.5*
Private	14.6
Medicaid and other public coverage	16.3
Uninsured	30.8*
Uninsured by community
Cleveland, Ohio	35.9
Lansing, Mich.	34.3
Syracuse, N.Y.	33.1
Miami, Fla.	31.6
Little Rock, Ark.	30.8
Seattle, Wash.	30.5
Indianapolis, Ind.	29.6
Phoenix, Ariz.	28.4
Boston, Mass.	27.7
Greenville, S.C.	27.1
Orange County, Calif.	22.5*
Newark, N.J.	21.6*
Metropolitan areas > 200,000 persons	29.7
Metropolitan areas < 200,000 persons	30.4
Nonmetropolitan areas	36.7*

*For insurance groups, difference with total U.S. population is statistically significant (p < .05). For estimates relating to specific communities or type of community, difference with all metropolitan areas > 200,000 persons is statistically significant (p < .05).

Persons were considered to have difficulty obtaining care if (1) they reported that they did not get needed services in the previous year, or (2) they delayed getting needed medical services.

All site-specific estimates were adjusted to control for differences across communities on the following factors: health status, age, gender, family size, education, family income, race/ethnicity and whether the interview was conducted in Spanish.

Source: Cunningham PJ, Kemper P. "Ability to Obtain Medical Care for the Uninsured: How Much Does it Vary Across Communities?" Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 280: 921-927 (1998).