Dor A, Holahan J
Hospital Studies Program, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD 20857.
Inquiry. 1990 Winter;27(4):307-18.
Policymakers have long been concerned with urban-rural disparities in access to health care. These disparities may be particularly severe in the case of the elderly and others covered by Medicare. Descriptive tables show that the total volume of physician services provided to rural beneficiaries is more than 40% lower than the volume of physician services provided to urban beneficiaries. This result is fairly consistent across all types of care and sites of care. In our econometric analysis, we investigate the factors that may explain these differences in utilization. The results indicate that, with prices held constant, variations in demographic and economic characteristics are not the major reasons for the urban-rural gap. Differences in hospital and physician (particularly specialist) availability appear to be the main factors.
长期以来，政策制定者一直关注城乡在获得医疗保健方面的差距。在老年人和其他享受医疗保险的人群中，这些差距可能尤为严重。描述性表格显示，提供给农村受益人的医生服务总量比提供给城市受益人的医生服务总量低40%以上。这一结果在所有类型的护理和护理地点都相当一致。在我们的计量经济学分析中，我们研究了可能解释这些利用差异的因素。结果表明，在价格不变的情况下，人口和经济特征的差异不是城乡差距的主要原因。医院和医生（特别是专科医生）可及性的差异似乎是主要因素。
