Blacks less likey to have Health Insurance

Young adults and blacks are more likely than the general population to be without health insurance, and three-fifths of the working uninsured are employed in the service sector, according to the first state survey on health insurance.



The survey, based on information from about 17,000 Pennsylvanians, was released Monday and comes just before state-budget negotiations that will likely revolve around the increasing cost of the state's health coverage for disabled and low-income people.





State officials say a 61-page report outlining the survey results gives them more information than ever to guide the state's various publicly funded health insurance plans.





Overall, the survey estimated that 8 percent of Pennsylvanians, or 900,000 people, lack health insurance, less than the 11 percent, or 1.3 million, reported by the Census Bureau.





"The good news is that it's 8 percent, not 11 percent," Rosemarie Greco, the director of the Office of Health Care Reform, said at a Capitol news conference. "Whether it's 900,000 or 1.3 million, it's still too many people."





Close to 1.9 million Pennsylvanians have coverage through Medicaid or one of the state's low-cost insurance programs, while two-thirds, or about 8 million, are insured through the private market.





Excluding senior citizens, who qualify for Medicare coverage, 9 percent of Pennsylvanians 64 and younger do not have health insurance, well below the national average of 17 percent, officials said.





By far, the largest percentage of the uninsured by age are young adults. One-fifth of adults between 18 and 34 are uninsured, accounting for half of those without insurance.





Slightly less than half the uninsured between 18 and 64 work full time, and most said they cannot afford to pay the premiums on the plans offered by their employers.





Three-fifths of the employed uninsured work in the service industry while one-fifth work in retail. Insurance Commissioner Diane Koken said she expects those populations will continue to rise as the economy shifts away from manufacturing.





Those without health insurance "go without needed medical attention, or they go into debt or bankruptcy," Koken said.





Greco and Koken said among the survey's surprises was that 9 percent of Hispanics are uninsured, a figure closer than previously thought to the state average.





On the other hand, some statistics were higher than anticipated, such as uninsured blacks at 14 percent. Also, children 11 to 18 accounted for two-thirds of all uninsured children. Department officials said they are already using the information to figure out how to better reach those groups.





To cover more people, Gov. Ed Rendell has proposed using contributions from the Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans and more federal tobacco settlement money to double the size of the state's low-cost adult health plan, which currently covers 37,000 people.





Also, business groups are pushing various measures in the Legislature that they say would lower the cost of insurance and give more plan options to small employers.





The telephone survey was conducted between March and September of 2004, and gathered information from 6,700 households in all 67 counties covering 17,000 people. The sample margin of error was plus or minus 1.1 percent.