Study Results from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Broaden Understanding of COVID-19 (Papering over the cracks: COVID-19’s amplification of the failures of employer-based health insurance coverage)

2021 FEB 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at NewsRx COVID-19 Daily -- Fresh data on coronavirus are presented in a new report. According to news reporting originating from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “COVID-19 has altered numerous lives and accounted for significant mortality and morbidity throughout the world and, especially, the USA.”

Our news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine: “During the pandemic, from mid-March to July 2020, around one-fourth of the US population filed for unemployment benefits. In this article, we discuss the economic ramifications exposed in the American healthcare system’s current model by the COVID-19 crisis. In this review, we analyze 18 articles to look at how access to health insurance has affected how Americans receive medical care during the coronavirus pandemic. The large-scale job losses related to the pandemic translates directly into millions of Americans also losing employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) coverage. With the pandemic disproportionately affecting minority populations, these communities now bear the additional toll of not receiving appropriate care.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Due to the pandemic, it is probable that a significant portion of Americans that are uninsured are less likely to seek medical care for COVID-19 symptoms. While the disease can manifest as a mild respiratory illness in most, others can experience more severe disease and require acute, intensive medical care. The lack of health insurance in this instance can be potentially fatal. Given that COVID-19 has disproportionately affected minority communities across the USA, it is important to highlight the correlation between access to medical care and COVID-19 infection rates. Communities that are of lower socioeconomic status are less likely to have health insurance and follow up with medical care due to out-of-pocket costs, which in turn leads to a higher case fatality rate due to COVID-19.”

For more information on this research see: Papering over the cracks: COVID-19’s amplification of the failures of employer-based health insurance coverage. Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives, 2021,11(1):107-110. (Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives - http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/zjch20/current). The publisher for Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives is Taylor & Francis Group.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/20009666.2020.1851869.

Our news editors report that more information may be obtained by contacting Devyani Ramgobin, Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)