Private Health Insurance in Rural Areas: Challenges and Opportunities

Date
04/2009
Description

Rural residents are less likely than their urban counterparts to have private health insurance coverage. This difference is driven by the unique characteristics of rural places that make it challenging to create and sustain viable private insurance pools, including the predominance of small businesses and self employed, part time, and low wage workers. This brief discusses the challenges of expanding private coverage in rural areas, and describes policy options to address them.

Center
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Authors
Erika Ziller, Andrew Coburn