The bad news is the number of those without health insurance in the US has grown to over 46 million. The good news is that a few states have seen a reduction in the number of uninsured; the really bad news is a few have gotten even worse.
Several states are doing well. One is Iowa, where the uninsured population actually decreased last year, as the percentage of those without health insurance dropped from 10.4% in 2004 to 9.1% in 2005. Part of this success is due to increased enrollment of kids in the state’s Hawk-I program, which more than doubled over five years to 34,600 in 2005. This parallels an increase of 200,000 enrolled in various government-funded programs over the same period.
Maine’s one of the better off states, with a population of uninsured that is significantly lower (10.5%) than the national average of 15.7%. The state’s Dirigo health plan, an effort to increase coverage among Mainers by targeting small employers and kids, has failed to meet enrollment goals but generated significant savings. It is tough to tell if the program has had an impact on the uninsured rate, as it is very new.
One that is not experiencing the same level of success is Arizona, with 20% of the population uninsured after an increase of 225,000 in the number of uninsured in 2005. To address the problem, the state is seeking to implement a revamped Medicaid program under a Federal waiver that focuses on the lower-income workers employed at businesses with fewer than 25 employees. There are over 200,000 businesses in the state that meet the size criterion.
As bad as the situation is in Arizona, it is worse in Texas, where almost a quarter of the population lacks health insurance.
What does this mean for you?
A closer examination of individual states may help us understand drivers of and solutions to the problem of uninsurance.
Sep
1
With respect to the estimated one-third of the uninusred that are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, my understanding is that when they get sick and wind up in a hospital, social workers at the hospital can and do sign them up for Medicaid and are allowed to back date the effective date of the coverage by up to three months. Another one-third earn over $50K per year and consciously opt to not buy coverage because them deem it too expensive. Many of these are young, healthy people who might be willing to buy high deductible coverage if their employer offered it and/or if their state allowed it. The other one-third is where the real issue is. Most of these are service workers in low paid industries like retail, restaurants, and hotels. The employer often cannot afford to provide coverage, and the employee certainly cannot afford it either.
BC, you’re right. Except that it’s not Social Workers, it’s Eligibility Vendors, who get people qualified for Medicaid, then as payment get a percentage of the reimbursement the hospital receives from Medicaid. I happen to work for a company which does exactly that.
I think if you were to look for a trend… I’ll predict that proximity to the border with Mexico is a significant factor. Every state you mentioned that was good is far from Mexico, the two that jump out as bad are border states. I bet New Mexico is terrible as well.
I can only hope the situation will improve. I think a portion of the problem is the border. In Tucson they had to shut down one of the trauma centers. I found out it was due to losing so much money from the illegals.
I think we need to fix the illegal problem and implement tort reform. Malpractice insurance is very expensive and if lawsuits were capped that would greatly help the problem.
Sincerely,
ezfastquotes
http://www.ezfastquotes.com
re the border – I’d be interested in seeing the stats that indicate illegals were/are contributing to the shut down from a trauma center.
re tort reform, my research indicates this is a red herring; malpractice insurance costs are not a significant driver of health costs. See other posts on this blog for more detail – search for “med Mal”