On February 28, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released a brief examining health coverage in areas with few health care professionals.  The brief found that 33.1 million individuals, or 13 percent of the non-elderly population, lived in Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA) between 2005 and 2007.  Over that period, an average of 24 percent of non-elderly individuals living in HPSAs were uninsured, compared to 17 percent of non-elderly individuals living in areas without shortages.  The authors found that approximately 50 percent of uninsured individuals living in HPSAs had no usual source of health care and had not recently had a preventive care visit.  The brief suggests that state policymakers need to address the disparity in health professional distribution as they implement the national health care reform law, because newly covered individuals living in HSPAs will have a disproportionately great need for services.

From the report:

As both federal and state governments gear up to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), concerns about the supply and distribution of physicians, particularly primary care physicians, are being raised. In many areas of the country, there is a shortage of primary care physicians, and some worry about whether the current workforce can meet the growing demand for services that will likely accompany coverage expansions. Those who are uninsured now use fewer health care services than the insured. In 2008, the average annual amount spent on health care by a nonelderly person who had no health insurance for the entire year was $1,686 compared to $4,463 incurred by those with coverage. When affordable coverage is obtained, health care use among the formerly uninsured is likely to increase markedly, if they can find providers who are open to new patients.

Full Report: Insurance Coverage and Access to Care in Primary Care (PDF |749 KB) 

Kaiser Family Foundation. (2011). Insurance coverage and access to care in primary care. Hoffman, C., Damico, A., and Garfield, R.