Health Policy for Underserved and Uninsured Population Analysis

This report examines the critical need for health policy designed to address the challenges faced by underserved and uninsured populations in the United States. It begins by defining medically underserved populations (MUPs) and the uninsured, highlighting the barriers they face, including economic, cultural, and linguistic challenges. The report presents statistical data from the U.S. Census Bureau, illustrating the prevalence of uninsurance among working-age adults and ethnic minorities. It emphasizes the importance of addressing this issue due to limited health literacy and awareness, which can lead to increased health burdens and premature mortality. The report identifies key stakeholders, such as elected leaders, financial analysts, and healthcare professionals, and discusses the political, social, economic, practical, legal, and quality-of-care factors that influence policy design. It concludes by emphasizing the need for tailored social messages and comprehensive policies to improve the health outcomes and quality of life for these vulnerable populations, with a specific focus on addressing the impact of cigarette smoking. The report stresses the importance of stakeholder collaboration and strategic resource allocation to ensure effective policy implementation.

Running head: POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
Policy for Underserved and Uninsured Population
Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

1
POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
Introduction
Medically Underserved Populations (MUPs) is used to denote a specific group of
population that lacks adequate access to the primary healthcare services. These groups also
experiences economic, cultural and other linguistic barriers towards availing equitable access in
healthcare. Uninsured population is those who lack basic insurance policies or subsidized
insurance policies in order to avail primary healthcare services. The prime examples of MUPs or
uninsured population include homeless, low-income, Native Americans, migrant farmworkers
and Medicaid-eligible population (Health Resources and Service Administration, 2019). The
following paper aims to analyze the immediate need of the policy designing for the uninsured
and underserved population in the U.S along with the role of the stakeholders in policy designing
Uninsured and medically underserved population
During the year 2017, the total number of uninsured people in the U.S increases to 28.0
million from 27.3 million (2016 data). Working-age adults are the highest contributors of the
medically uninsured population in the U.S. Nearly 84.6% of the uninsured population aged
between 19 to 64 years (United States Census Bureau, 2018). Approximately 1 out of 4
uninsured people are aged in between 26 to 34 years and 1 out of 5 uninsured people are aged in
between 34 to 44 years. Nearly half of all the people who resides without medical insurance are
male (54.6%) and the number is astonishing as in the U.S the percentage of women population is
higher than the male. Nearly 4 out of 10 uninsured population falls under the non-Hispanic white
group. The underserved population is disproportionately concentrated among the people who are
from the ethnic or racial minorities (United States Census Bureau, 2018).

2
POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
(Source: United States Census Bureau, 2018)
Need for Addressing the Issue
The underserved population or the populations who are uninsured and resides below the
poverty level suffers from poor health literacy that further creates a gap in understanding the
need of the healthcare service. According to the study conducted by Kaphingst et al. (2016), the
underserved population has limited health literacy along with lower genetic known and lower

3
POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
level of awareness about the family health history. The limited health literacy and lower
perceived knowledge is also prevalent among the people who are from the lower ethnic group
and they also fall in the category of the uninsured population (Kaphingst et al., 2015). Kaphingst
et al. (2016) stated that it is due to this limited health literacy and lower level of knowledge about
the family’s heath history, the underserved and the uninsured population suffers from complex
genetic disease or other contagious diseases and lifestyle disease. This in turn increases their
health-burden. Increase in the health-burden make them a potential target for the immediate
policy coverage with a subsidized premium service. Moreover, apart from the insurance
coverage, proper educational approaches must be undertaken by the U.S government in order to
increase their health literacy (Ford et al., 2019). Seo et al. (2016) are of the opinion that heath
literacy affects the process of decision making of the medically underserved population and thus
helping them to take proactive initiatives in accessing the primary healthcare services.
VanderWielen et al. (2015) stated that increasing health literacy and insurance coverage to the
underserved population will help to reduce the premature mortality and morbidity rate in the U.S
population. It would also help to reduce the healthcare cost by increasing the awareness about the
genetically transmitted diseases.
Stakeholders and the Key Interest Groups
Resource allocation and the decision making for generation of new policy are mainly
guided by the ley stakeholders. The responsibilities of the stakeholders further entail designing of
the healthcare plan for health insurance policy framing, reacting to the change in fund and
revising of the existing policies in order to highlight the gaps and refurbish the pathos in the new
policy guidelines. The organizational values for the equitable access to the healthcare and the
quality stewardship are two most frequently affected resource allocation and policy decision

4
POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
making. On the other hand, the economic and the political pressures affect the comparative
prioritization values. So selection of the stake-holders must be done wisely (Harrison & Taylor,
2016). Some of the principal stakeholders for the policy designing for the underserved and
uninsured population in the U.S include elected political leaders (they will help to raise the funds
from the governments), the financial analyst for the cost comparison, the medical healthcare
professionals to understanding the health needs and social activity in order to under the socio-
ecological gap among the minority or the underserved population in accessing the policies. The
tailored information, analysis of the unique needs will be helpful for those who will be enrolled
under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Plan by the end of 2022 (Housten et al.,
2016).
Political, Social, Economic, Practical, Legal, and quality-of-care factors
According to Samet (2013), the early trigger of death in the U.S is due to increased
incidence of cigarette smoking. Nearly 400,000 Americans die annually due to cigarette smoking
and the majority of the populations are the people from the ethnic minorities or people who are
underserved under healthcare insurance. The death mainly occurs due to lung cancer or through
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Special social messages must be tailored for these
minority people in order to increase health awareness for the cigarette smoking. Samet (2013)
stated that lack of proper employment and racial or social discrimination force people from
ethnic minority to indulge into smoking habits. Thus, in the policy planning the economical and
the social-logical aspect must be studied in order to understand the driving factors (if any) that
compel this population to indulge into such life threatening intoxication.

5
POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion, it can be concluded that, there is an increasing need for
framing of the policy for the underserved and the uninsured population of the U.S in order to
reduce the health-inequalities and to reduce the overall healthcare cost and health burden. The
selection of the stakeholders must be done wisely during the process of policy planning in order
to maintain flow of the funds and identification of the tailored needs. Special focus must be
given to cigarette smoking and fatal diseases occurring as an outcome of the disease in the policy
making process to improve the overall health-related quality of life of this group of population.

6
POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
References
Ford, M. E., Abraham-Hilaire, L. M., Bryant, D. C., Jefferson, M. S., LaPelle, N. R., Hazelton,
T. R., & Spruill, I. J. (2019). Evaluating a Media Strategy to Provide Health Messages to
Medically Underserved Populations. Journal of the National Medical
Association, 111(3), 270-280.
Harrison, K. L., & Taylor, H. A. (2016). Healthcare resource allocation decisions affecting
uninsured services. Journal of health organization and management, 30(8), 1162-1182.
Health Resources and Service Administration. (2019). Medically Underserved Areas and
Populations (MUA/Ps). Access date: 4th August 2019. Retrieved from:
https://bhw.hrsa.gov/shortage-designation/muap
Housten, A. J., Furtado, K., Kaphingst, K. A., Kebodeaux, C., McBride, T., Cusanno, B., &
Politi, M. C. (2016). Stakeholders’ perceptions of ways to support decisions about health
insurance marketplace enrollment: a qualitative study. BMC health services
research, 16(1), 634.
Kaphingst, K. A., Blanchard, M., Milam, L., Pokharel, M., Elrick, A., & Goodman, M. S.
(2016). Relationships between health literacy and genomics-related knowledge, self-
efficacy, perceived importance, and communication in a medically underserved
population. Journal of health communication, 21(sup1), 58-68.
Kaphingst, K. A., Stafford, J. D., McGowan, L. D. A., Seo, J., Lachance, C. R., & Goodman, M.
S. (2015). Effects of racial and ethnic group and health literacy on responses to genomic
risk information in a medically underserved population. Health Psychology, 34(2), 101.

7
POLICY FOR UNDERSERVED AND UNINSURED POPULATION
Samet, J. M. (2013). Tobacco smoking: the leading cause of preventable disease worldwide.
Thoracic surgery clinics, 23(2), 103-112.
Seo, J., Goodman, M. S., Politi, M., Blanchard, M., &Kaphingst, K. A. (2016). Effect of health
literacy on decision-making preferences among medically underserved patients. Medical
Decision Making, 36(4), 550-556.
United States Census Bureau. (2018). Most Uninsured Were Working-Age Adults. Access date:
4th August 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/09/who-
are-the-uninsured.html
VanderWielen, L. M., Vanderbilt, A. A., Crossman, S. H., Mayer, S. D., Enurah, A. S., Gordon,
S. S., & Bradner, M. K. (2015). Health disparities and underserved populations: a
potential solution, medical school partnerships with free clinics to improve
curriculum. Medical education online, 20(1), 27535.