Study paints bleak picture of health insurance coverage

More than a third of Nevadans under 65 without coverage sometime in last two years

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 | 3:20 p.m.

Harry Reid

See the Families USA study for Nevada

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More than a third of Nevada’s residents under 65 were without health insurance at some point in 2007 and 2008, according to a new study by a health care reform advocacy group.

The study, released today by Families USA, shows that 841,000 Nevadans under 65 years old, the eligible age for Medicare, were uninsured during the two years surveyed. That is 37.2 percent of the total population under 65.

More than 80 percent of those without health insurance were in working families, the study showed, and more than 25 percent were in families making more than $42,400 a year, twice the nation’s poverty level.

The group is releasing statistics on all 50 states over the next two weeks.

“The figures are appalling,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on a conference call about the study. But he added, “Given the state of the economy, health care and system, they are not a surprise, I am sorry to say.”

The study comes out as Reid has been advocating for President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan. The numbers show that reform needs to come this year, he said.

Reid noted that four out of five of the uninsured are in working families. “These are not bums sleeping under railroad cars at night,” he said.

Sen. Max Backus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is working on a bill to decrease the number of uninsured, Reid said, and he backed that effort.

Health care reform will ultimately save money, Reid said. Too much money is spent on uninsured people going to emergency rooms for primary health care, he said.

“For every dollar invested in health care, we save $7,” he said. “People ask, how can we afford to do anything about health care? How can we not afford it?”

Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack said that since the time of the study, many more people have lost jobs and their health coverage.

In addition, he said, more than three-quarters of the people uninsured in the study lacked health coverage for at least six months.

The study also shows that Hispanics, blacks and other minorities are more likely to be uninsured than whites, Pollock said.

Many minorities work for small businesses that don’t provide health care coverage or work part time and do not qualify, he said.

Bob Fulkerson, executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said Hispanics, however, were more likely to be insured in Nevada than in other states that have been studied so far.

“My hunch is the reason we’re a little better off would be because of the preponderance of Hispanics working for unionized casinos in Las Vegas,” he said.

Still, Fulkerson said, the nation’s health-care reform has to address the disparity in coverage among races.

Discussion: 4 comments so far…

By afveteran

3/25/09 at 5:19 p.m.

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Company-paid for healthcare insurance will soon be a thing of the past in Nevada. Businesses have to survive in tough downturn times and employees' perks are easy to slice off, to make the bottom line until the good times return.
By bdover

3/25/09 at 5:40 p.m.

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I was lucky. Retired at 58 with a bum neck. Had all the tests and stuff, and simply gave up trying to work at a keyboard for 10 hours a day. Lucky because I had saved money all my life, and so, when I became eligible for my company's retired healthcare plan, I enrolled immediately. So from age 58 to 65, I never had a sick day. Don't smoke, workout every day. How much did my Aetna plan cost me? Can you say $48,000 bucks? Thank you Jesus for Medicare. But it is a disgrace how we don't have some sort of national healthcare. But then again, most of the people who oppose national healthcare are stupid rednecks, who infest the Rocky Mountains, and especially Nevada. Must be fun sitting in the ER for 6-8 hours, dying for a smoke....
By neiman1

3/25/09 at 9:06 p.m.

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Why are people making over $42,000 a year without health care insurance? They chose not to buy it. They risk not getting sick in exchange for the premium savings. Freedom of choice. Strange word freedom, it lets you make choices, good and bad. I guess that's old fashion
By Nevada_Ned

3/25/09 at 11:05 p.m.

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The US health care system is the most expensive in the world, costing nearly twice as much as the Canadian system, which is #2. The Canadian system covers everybody. And since it's provided through the government, not the employer, Canadians who lose their jobs don't also lose their health care. Nobody in Canada goes bankrupt because of medical bills, but medical bills are one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the US.
So if we adopt a Canadian-style system ("single-payer" is the buzzword) we save lots of money and cover everybody. It's a great idea!

So why don't we have it already? Opposition from the insurance companies, who would be eliminated from a single-payer system.

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