The state Office of the Insurance Commissioner estimates that the number of Washington residents lacking health insurance will top 1 million by the end of the year.
It means 1 of every 7 people in the state is just one medical disaster away from falling in a financial black hole they may never escape.
The 16-page report on the state of health coverage paints a grim picture. Since 2008, the number of uninsured has grown by 180,000. In 31 of 39 counties, the ranks of the uninsured grew in the past two years.
The report serves as a reminder that health care reform is critical to the economic and physical health of the population. The uninsured numbers are expected to grow until 2014. That’s when major provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act takes effect, barring a ruling in the courts to amend it or strike it down.
If the law is upheld, more than 800,000 uninsured Washingtonians will be eligible for expanded Medicaid coverage, which could bring the number of uninsured down to about 6 percent.
“For many families struggling to get or keep health coverage, 2014 can’t come soon enough,” state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said. “If anyone doubts the need for health care reform, there are a million people out there that they should talk to.”
The statistics in the report are mostly gloomy. Here’s one minor exception: Thurston County is tied with Island County for the lowest percentage of residents uninsured – 10.7 percent. Clearly the fact that Olympia is the seat of state government and home to thousands of state government jobs with health insurance benefits helps to keep the numbers of uninsured down locally.
But in several counties in Eastern Washington the number without health coverage exceeds 20 percent of the population.
Several factors contribute to the steady escalation in the number of uninsured residents. Stagnant and declining incomes and continued high unemployment rates – both by-products of the Great Recession – play a role. So do rising health care costs that outpace inflation. A case in point: Average health insurance premiums for families climbed 9 percent nationwide in 2011.
The report drives home other noteworthy facts about the health care crisis. In Washington state, about half of the people who don’t have insurance are working either part-time or full-time. That’s 470,000 employees who work without a health care safety net.
There’s also a direct correlation between income levels and the likelihood someone has insurance. Only 40 percent of the employees earning less than $27,000 a year are covered by their employer’s insurance plan. For employees earning more than $60,000 annually, 80 percent have health care coverage.
Uncompensated health care is another major consequence of a tattered health care system. Next year, the value of health care provided without payment is expected to top $1 billion and reach $1.2 billion by 2013. Statewide, hospitals spend almost 5 percent of their budgets on uncompensated care.
All too often, those costs are passed on to consumers and businesses in the form of higher insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs. This not-so-hidden cost of uncompensated care is estimated at more than $1,000 per year, per family, or about $368 for an individual.
This marks the third report on uninsured health care costs from the Office of the Insurance Commissioner. Since the first report in 2004, the number of uninsured has grown by 300,000 and the value of uncompensated care has more than doubled.
There’s no doubt that this state and its residents, along with the rest of the nation, will never experience economic vitality and physical health to the degree that they deserve under the current health care system.
