Not Live, But Raw: University student Karah Barr

-Randi L. Niklekaj

Here's what you didn't see...

If you want some extra info about visiting the doctor without health insurance, check out my interview with Dr. Vener at Sibley Medical Center in Arlington, MN















More interviews to come.
-Randi L. Niklekaj

Young, healthy, and uninsured...

Photo: Jessica Mann

Matt Peterson is young, healthy and, like many people in their twenties, uninsured. He works at a restaurant to pay the bills and health insurance is the last thing on his mind. “It’s mainly a subject that I never think about,” he says. “It hasn’t really been an issue so far, because I’ve never had any major illness or injury or prescriptions that I have to pay a bunch of money for or anything like that”

While his situation is fairly common, some uninsured 20-somethings struggle with their budgets in order to try and make ends meet while having some type of health insurance. Some of them worry about a potentially costly accident or illness and others are required to be insured while in school.

Photo: Jessica Mann

A junior at the University of Minnesota, Joy Petersen has been researching insurance plans for months, after no longer being covered under her parents’ plan. “As of right now, I can’t afford insurance through any company,” she says. “I don’t have enough money to pay $118 dollars a month when it means the difference between just in case you get hurt and just in case you want to eat.”

What about some Answers?

We have been talking a lot about the problem of being uninsured and in your twenties, but what about some solutions to this growing problem. I was talking about this project with a co-worker who mentioned a program for young and uninsured Minnesotans. I also heard Dr. Vener mention this program in our interview.

Google: Images

Minnesota Care is a joint federal-state program that "provides subsidized health coverage to eligible Minnesotans." To qualify people must meet income limits and satisfy other requirements related to residency and lack of access to health insurance.
Children and parents, legal guardians, foster parents, or relative caretakers residing in the same household are eligible for Minnesota Care, if their total household income does not exceed 275 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.

So that means, if you live with your mom and dad, you just graduated college and you no longer qualify for their plan- your total income (all three of you) would have to be less than $48,400 per year. While Minnesota Care is one option, many 20-somethings already fail to meet this first requirement...and there are more.

Google: Images

Check out the link from the Minnesota House of Representatives, Research Department about Minnesota Care.

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/mncare.pdf

Below are a few links about the Minnesota Care health insurance program.

http://www.mnhealthnetwork.com/minnesota_care.htm

http://www.dhs.state.mn.us/main/idcplg?IdcService=GET_DYNAMIC_CONVERSION&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased&Redirected=true&dDocName=id_006255

Hope this provides some answers.

-Randi L. Niklekaj

Best Health Plans Search - Minnesota

U.S. News and World Report recently ranked different insurance plans on terms on customer satisfaction, the level of care they were offered when needed, and what preventative services were offered. 250 health plans were ranked from across the country. Here is how Minnesota's plans were ranked.

#38
HealthPartners (HMO/POS)Minnesota

#66
Blue Plus (HMO/POS)Minnesota

#135
Medica (HMO/POS)Minnesota

#141
Sanford Health Plan of Minnesota (HMO)Minnesota

#233
PreferredOne Community Health Plan (POS)Minnesota

http://www.usnews.com/directories/health-plans/index_html/plan_cat+commercial/state_id+MN/plan_name+/+Search/sort+rank/detail+more/page_number+1/page_size+10/+undefined

One in 5 Students Remains Uninsured, Despite Colleges' Efforts

This story that ran in the Chronicle of Higher Education last month mentioned one of out five college students are uninsured across the country. Despite many colleges, like the University of Minnesota, requiring all students to have insurance, and offering them plans through the school, it's not working. Going off a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office on college students and health insurance, the article states reasons why some students don't have insurance.
"Students were more likely to be uninsured if they were from low-income families, attended college part-time, or were members of minority groups" were a few reasons they stated.
The article also mentions that 1.7 million students were uninsured in 2006. Senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions said recently that student health care should be a major concern to people across the country.
""Students must be healthy to learn," he said.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/03/2308n.htm

Statistics On The Uninsured

In 2006, there were 47 million Americans without insurance.

In the same year, 22,000 people aged 25-64 died because they did not have adequate health insurance.

Throughout the United State, twice as many people died from lack of health insurance as died from being murdered.

Living without insurance is the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer in elderly people.

Dying For Coverage In Minnesota. Families USA. Washington D.C., 2008. http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/dying-for-coverage/minnesota.pdf

383,000 Minnesotans do not have health insurance.

That is more than 9% of the state's population.

It would cost between $663-852 million dollars to cover all of the uninsured Minnesotans.

61% of uninsured Minnesotans have been uninsured for a year or more.

59% those uninsured in the state are eligible for public insurance programs but are not enrolled.

There are 66,000 uninsured children in Minnesota.

Yearly insurance coverage costs an average Minnesotan adult is almost $4,000.

Source: How Much Would It Cost to Cover the Uninsured in Minnesota. Minnesota Department of Health. 2006. .

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84% of uninsured Minnesotans have at least one person in their family that works full or part time.

Minnesotans aged 19-26 years old make up the largest percent of the State’s uninsured with 18.7%.

About 1/3 of Hispanics in Minnesota do not have insurance.

If 100 people in Minnesota loses their job, 85 of them (including family members) also lose their health insurance.

A healthy 25 year old woman would have to pay about $1,595 a year for health insurance, averaging about 20-50% of her salary.

80% of Minnesotans living below the poverty level do not qualify for state Medicaid insurance programs.

Who's Uninsured in Minnesota and Why? Families USA. Washington D.C., 2003. ­­­­