Americans Who Have Health Insurance Have Better Health Habits
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Americans who have health insurance have higher Healthy Behaviors Index scores than the uninsured at any age in the 18 to 64 cohort. This holds true even after controlling for age, gender, education, ethnicity, employment, and income.
Overall, 80% of American adults younger than 65 report having health insurance coverage. This analysis is based on about 200,000 interviews conducted between January and October 2011 as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which includes the Healthy Behaviors Index as a sub-component. Specifically, respondents are asked to report on whether they smoke, on how many days in the last week they exercised for at least 30 minutes, if they ate healthy all day “yesterday,” and on how many days they consumed five or more servings of fruits and vegetables in the last seven days.
This is not really shocking since you would expect people who value their good health would also tend to want to protect it.
Other findings of the poll:
- Insured Less Likely to Smoke, More Likely to Eat Healthy
- Insured are more likely than the uninsured to report eating at least five servings of produce at least four days in the last week
- In physical activity the difference between the insured and uninsured group while present is not large.