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Trust grant strategies include: |
Health coverage is important to health status, allowing for much greater access to the preventive, diagnostic and treatment services needed to stay healthy. Yet 800,000 Coloradans, mostly low- and middle-income working families, do not have health coverage. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), uninsured individuals are less likely to have a usual source of care, less likely to receive recommended preventive services and more likely to delay needed care. Lack of coverage even increases the risk of mortality, contributing to an estimated 22,000 premature deaths in the U.S. in 2006. Additionally, it's estimated that more than 870,000 Coloradans under the age of 65 who have insurance, but spent more than 10% of their pre-tax income on health care this past year, are underinsured. A 2005 Harvard University study found that medical problems were behind more than 1,700 bankruptcies across the country, even though three-quarters of those bankrupt people had health coverage. Just as the increasingly out-of-reach expense of health coverage and care is tough on consumers' pocketbooks, it also causes significant problems for our state's economic outlook. The New America Foundation has estimated that in 2007 our state economy lost as much as $3.9 billion due to the poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured, or nearly $4,900 per uninsured Coloradan. With each percentage point rise in unemployment, an estimated 19,000 more adults and 1,000 more children become uninsured, and thousands more are added to the roles of Medicaid and Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+). In today's economic climate, this means thousands of Coloradans don't have access to critical health services. At the same time, businesses are struggling to maintain their ability to provide adequate, affordable health care coverage to employees due to the rising costs of insurance. As illustrated in the figure below, the current Colorado insurance landscape is comprised of a complicated array of private insurance markets (large group, small group, individual) and public coverage programs (Medicare, Medicaid, military insurance) that both overlap and leave people out.
The vast majority of Coloradans receive coverage that is partially subsidized, either through an employer or the government. However, approximately one-in-five working-age Coloradans neither qualify for subsidized coverage through the workplace nor through a public program. Those who can afford to do so, and have no pre-existing conditions, purchase health insurance directly. This group accounts for fewer than 4% of Coloradans. The remainder, those who cannot afford to pay health insurance premiums entirely out-of-pocket, are uninsured. This patchwork assortment of coverage options makes policy solutions equally complex and politically challenging. Simplifying and expanding coverage is further complicated as such efforts require consensus about the need for reform, compromise on strategies to achieve coverage and the necessary financing to cover the increasingly large number of people who are uninsured. |
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