LAKHAN LAL KASHYAP,HARISH JAISWAL,MANVI PANT
DOI: https://doi.org/Prior to and following the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid in the US, this article provides national data on a social indicator-style measure of access to healthcare. According to the research, between 1963 and 1970, the poor's access to healthcareparticularly that of those who had a regular source of caredid improve in comparison to the non-poor. During this time, access decreased significantly for middle-class and low-income individuals without a regular doctor and for high-income individuals with a regular family physician. A possible explanation for these findings is that providers may have started limiting the number of visits by the "well-to-do" once Medicare and Medicaid were implemented in order to make room for the flood of low-income patients who had a backlog of unmet needs and newly acquired purchasing power. Entry obstacles persisted for many impoverished people who had no prior established provider of care. To confirm these and other hypotheses put forward here, much more complex investigations are needed, however.
