Report details medical insurance issues faced by employees in the Northwest
MORE AND MORE PEOPLE are self-employed or working for small companies. Why does that fact deserve attention in a column called Health Notes? Because smaller companies are increasingly less likely to provide employees with medical insurance.
That was one finding in a report released this month by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations.
“The Northwest Health Gap Report” also showed that premiums employees pay when their company does provide insurance have increased 59 percent since 2001. On top of that, employees are responsible for 49 to 57 percent more of that bill than before.
That’s forcing more employees to forgo insurance, even when their employers foot part of the bill, the report states.
The report found 55 percent of Washingtonians have employer-based health insurance, 5 percent buy private insurance, 15 percent and 10 percent are covered by Medicaid and Medicare, respectively, and 15 percent are uninsured.
The figures are similar in Idaho, where 53 percent have employer-based insurance, 5 percent buy it themselves, 13 percent are covered by Medicaid and 11 percent by Medicare, and 18 percent are uninsured.
Across the Northwest, workers who earn low hourly wages are most at risk of being uninsured.
And people of color are more likely to be uninsured than whites. Nationwide, 14.5 percent of whites are uninsured while 35.7 percent of Hispanics, 20.8 percent of African Americans and 19.5 percent of people of other races or multiple races are uninsured, according to the report.
Compounding the problem, people without insurance or who are underinsured are more likely to have serious health concerns. Why? Their minor medical problems aren’t being treated until they explode into bigger and badder issues.
To read the report, visit www.nwfco.org/2005-0616_health_gap.pdf.
On that note …
Interested in learning more about the growing number of uninsured and underinsured Americans, as well as other health policy issues?
Group Health Cooperative’s Board of Trustees will sponsor a public forum July 11 on universal health care coverage and Group Health’s efforts to improve access and care.
The event will be held at the company’s administrative building, 5615 W. Sunset Highway. Doors open at 6 p.m. and discussion starts at 6:30.
The forum is free, but seating is limited, so the public is asked to reserve a spot by calling (800) 992-2279.
Parenting help a call away
A new hotline aims to give foster parents and relative caregivers after-hours support for their children’s medical, emotional or emergency situations.
The number – (800) 301-1868 – connects caregivers to social workers trained to respond to such crises.
“The people who take care of our most vulnerable children need to have support 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Jeanne McShane, a program manager with the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services, in a release.
DSHS staffs the hotline from 4:30 to 8 p.m. on weekdays and at all hours on weekends and holidays. Caregivers can call their social workers directly during weekdays.
The hotline is part of Kids Come First Phase II, an effort to reform the state’s child welfare system.
Americans failing cancer quiz
A national telephone survey of 957 adults with no history of cancer found that many Americans are holding onto false misconceptions of the disease.
More than 40 percent of respondents believed that surgery spreads cancer in the body.
Twenty-seven percent believed there is a cure for cancer, but the health care industry is withholding it.
And more than one in 10 respondents agreed that “all you need to beat cancer is a positive attitude.”
For those of you who fall in those 10 to 40 percent ranges, those three statements are false, according to the American Cancer Society.
There wasn’t much difference in the number of correct and incorrect answers among the respondents who called themselves either “very informed” or “not very informed.”
However, those who considered themselves “not at all informed” were right. They scored the lowest on the five-question survey.
The American Cancer Society survey will be published in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal CANCER.