Number Without Insurance Rising
Originally published by NBC30
Number Of State Residents Without Insurance Rising
More Than 16,000 Join List Of Uninsured
POSTED: 12:17 p.m. EDT September 30, 2003
HARTFORD, Conn. -- The number of Connecticut residents without health insurance grew by 4.8 percent to nearly 360,000 last year, mirroring a national increase.
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Nationally, the ranks of the uninsured swelled by nearly 6 percent to 43.6 million in 2002, the latest year for which figures are available. It was the second consecutive annual increase, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report released Tuesday.
More people were without health coverage as insurance costs kept rising and more Americans lost their jobs and health care coverage. The number of uninsured Connecticut residents grew to 359,892 people in 2002, according to the Connecticut Health Policy Project, a New Haven, Conn., -based think tank that analyzed the Census figures. About half the uninsured people in Connecticut have jobs.
The increase in the state's uninsured population resulted from rising unemployment and health insurance costs, and the fact that employers passed on more costs to workers, Ellen Andrews, director of the health policy project, said.
Many workers chose not to buy into their employers' health plans because of increasing costs, suggested Jan Spegele, vice president and general counsel of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association. Among Connecticut's uninsured is Stacy Nelson, of Vernon, Conn. The state Department of Environmental Protection laid her off in February because of the state's budget crisis. The 32-year-old single mother of two was able to keep her health insurance until last month by paying $55 every two weeks under the federal COBRA provision. She lost her coverage on Sept. 1, when the six-month grace period ran out. Afterward, she stopped taking Lipitor, the $118-a-month prescription medication that controls her inherited high cholesterol.
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"I can't afford it," said Nelson, who is working part-time without benefits while she searches for a permanent job.
Nelson has applied to have her children, ages 13 and 4, covered by the HUSKY plan, a health insurance program for needy children administered by the state. When New London, Conn., hairdresser Robert Moreash got bronchitis last week, he had to decide which would be worse -- his bad cough or the medical bill that would put him deeper into debt.
"The day I went into the walk-in clinic, I was sweating. It was hard to breathe," he told The Courant. "I had thought, if I feel this way tomorrow, I'll go."
His roommate persuaded him not to wait. The decision left Moreash with a $143 bill at the pharmacy and another from the clinic that he expects in the mail. Most of the major 2004 Democratic presidential candidates have offered plans that would reduce the number of uninsured by 50 percent to 75 percent. One of them, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, of Ohio, has called for a universal coverage plan modeled on the single-payer system used in Canada. President Bush included a proposal in his 2004 budget that would reduce the number of uninsured by about 10 percent, but the Republican-controlled Congress has not completed action on the plan, and there appears little likelihood it will do so this year.
Unwilling to wait for Washington, members of the state legislature's Public Health Committee this autumn plan to convene a commission to come up with a single-payer, universal health insurance plan for Connecticut. Although Maine recently begun a program to provide more of its residents with health insurance, a Connecticut lawmaker acknowledged that the goal might be too lofty here.
"At least we have a star to shoot toward," said state Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Southington, co-chairman of the public health committee. He said the commission would meet from October to February and present a plan before the end of the next legislative session.
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