Table 1.

Descriptive Characteristics of Adults Who Have a Primary Care Physician or Specialist as a Usual Source of Care, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) 2008

	Sample Means (No Survey Adjustment)			Population Means* (Accounting for Survey Weights)
	Specialist Physician	Primary Care Physician	Standardized Difference in Means	Specialist Physician	Primary Care Physician	Standardized Difference in Means
N	216	5,088		2,517,828	61,110,686
Covariates
Age >64 (%)	36.11	22.25	0.29	40.71	22.91	0.37
White (%)	52.78	56.11	−0.07	70.02	74.21	−0.08
Black (%)	20.37	17.96	0.06	11.46	10.24	0.03
Hispanic (%)	12.04	17.33	−0.16	8.79	9.42	−0.02
Other (%)	14.81	8.59	0.175	9.73	6.13	0.10
Poor (%)	39.81	31.98	0.16	33.42	24.95	0.17
Education (years)	12.56	12.78	−0.07	12.72	13.15	−0.15
SF-12—PCS	44.02	47.68	−0.29	44.35	48.11	−0.30
SF-12—MCS	49.73	50.58	−0.08	50.29	51.05	−0.07
Self-reported health
Excellent	10.80	14.58	−0.13	13.61	15.27	−0.05
Very good	26.39	33.96	−0.17	26.57	35.96	−0.21
Good	35.65	33.22	0.05	34.64	33.20	0.03
Fair	21.30	14.09	0.18	20.45	12.24	0.20
Poor	6.02	4.15	0.08	4.73	3.34	0.06
Insurance
Private (%)	59.72	69.81	−0.21	61.20	74.35	−0.27
Public (%)	31.94	21.93	0.21	30.90	18.52	0.27
Uninsured (%)	8.33	8.25	0.00	7.90	7.13	0.03
Female (%)	52.31	55.94	−0.07	50.69	53.43	−0.06
Married (%)	48.15	59.91	−0.24	48.88	60.32	−0.23
MSA (%)	84.72	85.10		85.21	84.60
Region			−0.01			0.02
Northeast (%)	14.35	20.13	−0.16	19.14	23.88	−0.14
Midwest (%)	18.98	21.74	−0.07	17.71	23.16	−0.14
South (%)	42.13	41.47	0.01	40.32	38.42	0.04
West (%)	24.54	16.67	0.18	22.82	14.53
Outcome
Medical spending	$10,664.38	$5,261.37	0.26	$10,899.97	$5,274.18	0.28

^*Univariate statistics calculated using Stata’s survey set command using MEPS SAQWT08F survey weight. No propensity score adjustment applied.