Wednesday, February 12, 1997
INSURANCE:
6.6 million lack health coverage; increase in accessibility,
affordability neededBy Kathryn Combs
Daily Bruin Contributor
A recent study, conducted by researchers from the UCLA and UC
Berkeley Schools of Public Health, revealed that the number of
uninsured Californian residents is growing and continues to rise as
a consequence of the rising cost of insurance.
According to the 100-page study, titled "The State of Health
Insurance in California, 1996," a total of 6.6 million California
residents, 1.8 million of which are children, have no health
insurance coverage. This is out of the over 30 million residents in
all of California.
Dr. E. Richard Brown, director of the UCLA Center for Health
Policy research, said that this number includes "mostly working
families and individuals … students who work, but don’t get
health insurance, and parents who work full time and full year and
don’t get coverage."
According to the study, the masses of uninsured Californians
include a disproportionate number of minority groups, specifically
Latinos, African Americans and Asians.
"We have one of the highest uninsured rates in the country. The
national rate is 17 percent whereas in California, 23 percent of
the population is uninsured," Brown said.
"California has approximately one out of every six people
uninsured in the United States," he added.
According to Helen Halpin Schauffler, another of the primary
investigators involved in this project, "We (Californians) have a
much lower rate of job-based insurance, and a much higher
proportion of our population works for small firms which are least
likely to offer their employees insurance."
Schauffler, an associate professor of health policy at UC
Berkeley, called this trend a direct consequence of California’s
lack of adequate and moderately priced health care.
Sponsored by the California Health and Wellness Foundation, the
study was designed to comprehensively document the current state of
health care and health insurance provision in the state of
California, over a period of five years. This policy report is the
result of the first year of research.
Started in October 1995, the initial goals of the study were to
"document the extent to which Californians have access to
comprehensive and affordable health insurance that also promotes
their health," said Schauffler.
"Our ultimate goal is to try to inform and influence policy
makers to increase access to heath insurance in California," she
said. "After the failure of national health care reform, what we
see now is a willingness to pursue more incremental reforms."
Overall, researchers recommended that reforms be made to improve
the affordability of health insurance for individual purchasers,
small businesses and medium-sized businesses.
The purpose of health insurance is to reduce cost as a barrier
to seeking routine health care. Ironically, one reason people are
avoiding medical care is because of the high cost of health
insurance coverage.
Because the vast majority of uninsured Californians remain
uninsured due to this expense, Schauffler suggested that it should
be the responsibility of employers to provide health insurance.
In fact, Nadereh Pourat, an associate researcher with the UCLA
Center for Health Policy Research, pointed to a lack of job-based
insurance in California as a significant part of the problem.
"The reason for higher uninsured rates are complicated but one
reason may be is that Californians have a lower rate of
employment-based coverage and generally this has to do with their
employment characteristics and the economy," said Pourat.
"A lot of the uninsured are working uninsured, and they end up
being workers in small firms that do not offer coverage."
In response to this Brown suggested the expansion of health care
policies such as Medical to provide care for all.
"Most of the uninsured have very low incomes," he explained.
"(This) makes it difficult for them to contemplate spending 8 to
10, maybe even 20 percent, of their income on health
insurance."
Among recommendations made was the implementation of a standard
benefit package that insures all health plans price their premiums
in a range that consumers can afford.
"It’s really critical that the public health system ensure that
they (the uninsured) have access to primary health care," said
Schauffler. "The safety net has a huge hole in it."
Schauffler explained that people who are uninsured seek
preventive services, such as immunizations and mammograms, less
often than those with health coverage. She also said that because
the uninsured typically come from lower income areas, where good
health is less of a concern, they require health care more often
than the average person.
Schauffler said that she hopes that this report will raise the
awareness of policy makers about the current state of health care
coverage, and give them a starting point to decrease the number of
uninsured from the current 23 percent.
Now that the first report has been published, Brown and
Schauffler are sending copies to government officials, urging them
to take action.
"We are not taking a position that there should be one policy
over another," said Brown.
"We advocate that people be assured health care coverage. … We
have to deal with this problem and it’s not going to happen by
itself. We have to take deliberate policy steps to make that
happen."