1B. NATALITY: MATERNAL CHARACTERISTICS ANDNEWBORN?SHEALTH
The number of years of maternal
education was the only possible
proxy of socioeconomic status
(SES) on the birth certificate
prior to 1989. Paying party for
the delivery became another
SES indicator in 1989. The
Arizona Health Care Cost
Containment System (AHCCCS,
the State?s Medicaid Program)
versus private health insurance
(PHI) compares mothers of
lower
and
higher
SES
respectively. PHI mothers were
2.6 times more likely to have
some college education than
were AHCCCS mothers (78.3
and 30.2 percent respectively,
Figure 1B-15
). Around 6
percent of AHCCCS mothers had
0-8 years of education, 10.3
times the proportion of PHI
mothers. Only 18.6 percent of
mothers with
PHI
were
unmarried compared to 65.4
percent of AHCCCS mothers.
Eight out of ten mothers with
PHI were at least 25 years old
compared to 5 out of 10
AHCCCSmothers.
Figure1B-15
Comparisonof SelectedSociodemographic Characteristics by the
Payee for Delivery, Arizona, 2013
Notes: The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) is the State?s Medicaid program.
Since 2002, the share of
resident births paid for by
AHCCCS has exceeded the share
paid by private health insurance
(
Figure 1B-16
). In 2003,
private insurance funded 43.8
percent of births and AHCCCS
paid for 50.5 percent of births.
Compared to 2003, AHCCCS
paid for 3.4 percent more births
in 2013 and private insurance
paid for 2.6 percent fewer births
in 2013.
The share of AHCCCS funded
births varied little from 2005 to
2013. The share of private
health insurance also remained
stable during this time period. In
2013, the payment source was
the mothers themselves and/or
their families (i.e., self-pay) in
3.5 percent of the deliveries. The
Indian Health Service (IHS) paid
for 1.3 percent of the births in
2013 (
Table 1B-28
; see also
Table1B-25
).
Figure1B-16
Births byPayer andYear, Arizona, 2003-2013
Notes: The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) is the State?s Medicaid program; IHS is the Indian Health Service.
Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics 2013
25
