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Posted on September 19, 2006

46 million uninsured focus of meeting

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Mandatory insurance among plans debated

By Laura Ungar
lungar@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Celeste Vanskike has worked at preschools for 25 years but can’t afford health insurance — meaning she’s had to put off doctor visits and leave a thyroid condition untreated.

“Here I am, I’ve got a good work ethic and I’m barely eking out an existence. … And there’s so many of us out here without insurance,” said the 56-year-old Louisville woman, who earns less than $20,000 a year. “More has to be done. It has to be brought to light.”

Yesterday, the Kentucky Medical Association focused its annual meeting on the estimated 46 million uninsured Americans and more than half a million uninsured Kentuckians.

Called “Breaking the Barriers,” the meeting attempted to dissect the problem and present possible solutions, including a Massachusetts program mandating residents have insurance, an American Medical Association plan promoting “incremental” health-care reform, and a national health-care system like the one in Canada.

“For a number of our members, the issue of the uninsured in the state is a bigger problem” than the rising cost of malpractice insurance, said Daniel W. Varga, chief medical officer for Norton Healthcare and outgoing president of the KMA.

Dr. Stephanie J. Woolhandler, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, said America is morally bound to care for the uninsured. According to the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit organization that advises the government on medical issues, about 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack insurance.

“We don’t just live in an economy,” she said. “We live in a society and we have a responsibility to protect and care for each other.”

Kentucky below average

About 14 percent of Kentuckians, and a similar portion of Indiana residents, lack health insurance. Although these figures are below the national average, speakers said the problem in Kentucky is compounded by poverty and one of the unhealthiest populations in the nation.

There’s also an increasing number of middle-class, underinsured Kentuckians facing some of the same problems as the uninsured in getting the care they need, said Michael E. Samuels, a University of Kentucky professor and rural health expert.

He pointed to statistics from a recent telephone survey of 2,100 households by the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center. It showed that 54 percent of uninsured residents and 21 percent of insured residents skipped a medical test because of cost.

“The one thing we don’t want to do is prevent people from getting necessary preventive care and the necessary screenings,” he said.

Samuels said several trends are converging: Employers are shifting more insurance costs to workers, fewer small companies offer health benefits and a growing number of personal bankruptcies are linked to medical costs.

Those most likely to be among the uninsured include low-wage workers, young people entering the labor force and those who retire early. About half of Kentuckians with no health insurance have done without it for more than three years, the survey found.

Vanskike, who has an associate’s degree, lives in an apartment and has no car, said she’s been uninsured since 2003. Although her current employer offers health insurance, she said she can’t afford the premiums.

When she was insured, she took medication for an underactive thyroid. But she said she hasn’t been able to get a clinic appointment to get her prescription renewed and can’t afford a private doctor. Without treatment, she said, the condition causes her to gain weight and saps her energy.

Vanskike said she would support a national health-insurance plan. “I’m all for the government helping people.”

Financial incentives

Woolhandler said there are many financial reasons for adopting national health care. For instance, she said, health-care costs for auto companies were $1,309 per car for Ford but only $97 per car for Toyota in Japan, which has a system of universal health coverage.

She said administrative health-care costs have risen dramatically in the United States and are much lower in countries with national health care. Meanwhile, life expectancy is higher in several of these countries.

She acknowledged problems with national systems, such as some waits for care in Canada. But she said the percentage of people with unmet health-care needs is about the same for Canadians as for insured Americans.

“The problems have been grossly exaggerated in the U.S. media,” Woolhandler said.

Other speakers provided different remedies for the nation’s health-care woes.

Dr. Jack T. Evjy, of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s task force on universal access, said that state is putting into place a program that mandates residents have insurance and helps them by expanding Medicaid eligibility and providing subsidies for low-income residents to buy insurance. The program, modeled on the requirement for car insurance, penalizes those who don’t get insurance by July 2007.

“I think it’s going to succeed,” Evjy said. “A lot of our experience can apply here in Kentucky.”

Dr. Jeremy A. Lazarus, vice speaker of the AMA House of Delegates, outlined that group’s approach, which boils down to giving people money to buy health insurance through tax credits. The plan also involves giving people a choice of coverage plans and rewarding them for staying insured.

Lazarus said the AMA will work to make coverage of the uninsured one of the top priorities in the 2008 national elections.

He said, “There’s really a moral imperative to get something done and get something done soon.”

Reporter Laura Ungar can be reached at (502) 582-7190.