At the Hospital with Dr. Vener

I interviewed Dr. Vener at the Sibley Medical Center. I also talked to an uninsured student and an insurance agent. I talked to Dr. Vener about hypothetical costs to uninsured and what he would or would not prescribe. I talked to University Student Karah Barr about being uninsured. My interview with Community Insurance Laurie Brockhoff was informational as well. See a 3 min package below.
Stay tuned for raw footage interviews...

-Randi L. Niklekaj

FYI: Attention young adults

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

Check this site out. It is 2001 data of MN counties and uninsurance rates. Its a little old, but still important. Plus, this is important for my interview with the Sibley Medical Center in Sibley County, MN.

http://www.statecoverage.net/statereports/mn32.pdf


Also, more from Stefan at the MN Dept. of Health:


We are the right source for this information and it is indeed at our fingertips. However, the way this information is arrived at is via random probability survey. What that means is, similar to polling, you draw are representative sample and based on this derive an estimate. Because the survey was designed to produce statewide estimates, we only have sufficient sample for certain populous counties to generate statistically reliable estimates - Sibley County is not one of those.

Perhaps this helps: Sibley County is located in the South Central Minnesota region, for which we estimate an uninsurance rate in 2007 of 7 percent. This is statistically not different from the statewide rate of 7.2 percent. Again,we can't produce a rate that is specific for young adults. However, you may remember that the statewide estimate for uninsured young adults (18 to 24-year-olds) is 18.7 percent.


Stefan Gildemeister
Assistant Director, Health Economics Program Division of Health Policy
Minnesota Department of Health

-Randi L. Niklekaj

2007 Wallstreet Journal Article

I was researching information about uninsurance rates in Minnesota when I cam across this 2007 article in The Wall Street Journal:




Who Pays for Health Insurance?

By CLARK HAVIGHURST and BARAK RICHMAN September 6, 2007

New census data showing that the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 2.2 million in the past year (to 47 million) undoubtedly deserves the attention it is getting. But the increasing size of the uninsured population is only a symptom of deeper problems in American health care, not the problem itself. Indeed, concern for the uninsured obscures the plight of middle- and lower-income workers who do have health coverage but pay dearly for it.


In many cases, those who drop their health coverage do so for rational reasons. They apparently prefer to run some financial and health risks rather than pay for insurance that now costs the average family $12,000 annually. The American health-care system resembles all too closely an extortion scheme that forces individuals to either pay a very high price or put their families' health in danger. It is not surprising that many working Americans are deciding not to take it anymore.

Ironically, many more Americans would probably drop their health coverage if they knew how much it really costs them. But they don't know, because of the way the tax system treats health benefits. Under the current system, employers are the principal purchasers of health insurance, and workers seldom know how much their employers pay. They also don't realize what economists have repeatedly concluded: Employer outlays for health insurance translate directly into less take-home pay for employees.


Because the tax system has induced workers to believe that someone else was paying the bills for their care, they have pushed for better health benefits regardless of cost. Benefits have thus become more comprehensive and expensive than makes economic sense for most working families. Likewise, because voters haven't fully understood who pays for health care, they have supported laws and regulations that strongly reflect the values and interests of the health-care industry and its most affluent customers. Consequently, unlike ordinary consumer products, health coverage does not come in a range of models suited to different pocketbooks.

Weak consumer cost-consciousness has left the U.S. with private insurance that functions as a reverse Robin Hood scheme, taking from middle-income Americans to support a health system that benefits many elite interests. A significant fraction of the cost individuals incur for health coverage goes not to pay for care they and their families receive, but to support a variety of industry activities and projects, including medical education and research and the building of costly facilities. Even assuming the industry pursues only socially worthwhile goals, its otherwise uncompensated efforts should be financed by a fair system of taxation. At present, many such costs fall on premium payers like a regressive "head tax" rather than in proportion to their income or ability to pay.


Evidence also suggests that many benefits of health insurance, though paid for equally by everyone, flow disproportionately to the affluent. For example, cost-sharing requirements deter lower-income individuals from using their coverage more than they deter wealthy ones. The latter also know how to manipulate the system to obtain more and better services at plan expense. Legal mandates requiring insurers to cover such services as mental-health care and fertility treatment make available, at collective expense, benefits that the affluent are much more likely to use.
Particularly in view of the widening income gap between middle- and high-income earners, serious attention should be given to how the health-care system takes lots of money from the working class without giving them commensurate value for much of it. One does not have to be a populist to see the unfairness (as well as the tendency to increase the uninsured population) of forcing workers to pay unjustifiably high prices as a condition of being insured at all.

A good way to prepare the public for needed health reforms would be to expose consumers to the true cost of health insurance. President George W. Bush's pending proposal to tax the value of employees' health benefits as income, while also providing a compensating standard deduction or tax credit, would serve the useful purpose of stimulating market and political demand for low-cost alternatives, including coverage that stops short of paying for everything seemingly mandated by professional (that is, non-economic) standards.
Congress is making a mistake in ignoring the president's proposal. If voters realized that it is not only the uninsured whom the current system victimizes, would-be reformers of all stripes might finally find a broad constituency willing to support fundamental change.


Messrs. Havighurst and Richman are professors at Duke Law School.




I am not sure our health care system and insurance system works for anybody...-Randi L. Niklekaj

Stefan Gildemeister, State Health Economist

If you don't have insurance- What happens?





Advocacy vs. Research in the Minnesota Department of Health.

The state of Minnesota's Health System. Our Future and what you can do right NOW to help your self.

Stefan Gildemeister, State Health Economist

What are the patterns of the young and uninsured?




Stefan talks about the major problems with young adults and not being insured. The state of transition, low income and little or no benefits create the perfect storm for people in the 20s. What are your choices and priorities?

What happens when you delay care? Stefan answers questions about what happens in an emergency situation, costs, problems and procedures.

Stefan Gildemeister, State Health Economist

I went to the Minnesota Department of Health to talk to Stefan Gildemeister. He had some intersting facts and figures about Minnesota's uninsured. Randi L. Niklekaj

The 2007 College Student Health Survey

Among the individuals from 14 Minnesota colleges and universities who participated in the 2007 College Student Health Survey (conducted each year by Boynton Health Service), 13.9 percent report they are uninsured or do not know if they are insured.

These rates tend to be lower than the uninsured rates among all 18- to 24- year-old Minnesotans. Because many insurance plans allow dependents under the age of 25 to remain eligible for coverage while attending a postsecondary institution, this may be a factor in the lower rates reported by survey respondents. In addition, the lower rates may reflect students’ access to health insurance offered through the institution they are attending.

Students attending the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities (UMTC) report an overall uninsured rate of 14.6 percnet. Males tend to have a higher uninsured rate compared to females (17.6 percent vs. 12.6 percent, respectively). International students report an uninsured rate of 54.6 percent.

University of Minnesota–Twin Cities students ages 25-29 report the highest uninsured rate. The lowest uninsured rates are among UMTC students ages 18-19 and 20-24. This may be a reflection of parental health insurance coverage for students ages 18-24.

Health insurance coverage appears to have an impact on whether UMTC students obtained routine medical examinations within the past 12 months. Uninsured male and female students had slightly lower rates of obtaining a routine medical examination than insured students.

Insured students at UMTC obtain immunizations for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and meningitis at higher rates than uninsured students at the university. However, insured and uninsured students at UMTC receive influenza immunizations at the same rate.

-Jessica