EAGLE COUNTY — We’re No. 2, but not in a good way.
Northwest Colorado’s ski resort region has the state’s second-highest percent of people without health insurance, according to a Colorado Healthcare Access Survey.
While Colorado’s uninsured rate dropped to 6.7 percent, the rate of uninsured people in Region 12 — Eagle, Pitkin, Summit, Garfield and Grand counties — is 11.7 percent, down from 19.4 percent in 2013.
That’s Colorado’s second-highest, behind Region 11, which is right next door, geographically speaking: Jackson, Routt, Moffat and Rio Blanco counties.
We might have the second-highest percent of uninsured people, but we still pay the most for our health insurance, which means …
WE’RE STILL NO. 1
When the Affordable Care Act maps were first introduced last year, Colorado’s Region 12 had the nation’s highest healthcare costs.
That hasn’t changed yet, said Michele Lueck, CEO of the Colorado Health Institute.
Nothing in the 2015 Colorado Health Access Survey data released last week speaks to that or to rate increase requests by some health insurance companies doing business in Colorado. Rocky Mountain HMO, for example, asked the Colorado Division of Insurance for permission to raise its rates 34.4 percent. Anthem Blue Cross asked for an 8.2 percent increase. Humana wants 20.9 percent more.
Of the 17 companies asking for rate changes, only two are requesting rate reductions: Cigna (-5.1 percent) and United Healthcare Life Insurance Co. (-2.3 percent).
The Division of Insurance will rule on those requests in about two weeks, said Marguerite Salazar, division director.
MORE ON MEDICAID
State health officials say enrolling almost a half million more Coloradans in Medicaid is a cause for celebration.
The percent of Coloradans without health insurance dropped to 6.7 percent, Lueck.
The drop is due largely to adding 450,000 more people to Colorado’s Medicaid roles. One in three Coloradans are now covered by a public plan such as Medicaid and Medicare, up from one in four before Medicaid expansion became a central issue in the Affordable Care Act.
That pushes Colorado’s Medicaid roles to 1.2 million, according to state division of Health Carre Policy and Financing.
“Whether you agree or disagree, the central charge was to get more Americans and Coloradans insured,” Lueck said. “Colorado has done what it set out to do.”
Expanding the state’s Medicaid roles the last two years cut the number of uninsured Coloradans by more than half in the last two years, to 6.7 percent, from 14.3 percent in 2013, Lueck said.
Part of that drop can also be attributed to forcing people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.
Those penalties will get stiffer next year, Lueck said, up to 2.5 percent of your income, or as much as $2,085 per household.
UNINSURED NUMBERS
For now, 353,000 Coloradans don’t have health insurance, according to the 2015 Colorado Health Access Survey. Four years ago, in 2011, Colorado’s uninsured rate stood at a high of 15.8 percent with 829,000 without health insurance, the survey says.
Medicaid is a federal means-tested health and medical services program. In Colorado’s case, Medicaid eligibility was expanded to people earning 138 percent of federal poverty level, Lueck said. The federal poverty level is $24,250 for a family of four, according to www.health care.gov.
Hispanics continue to be the most disproportionately uninsured. And the Western Slope, especially Northwestern Colorado, still struggle with the state’s highest uninsured rates, the survey said.
AMONG OTHER FINDINGS
Not only is our region’s uninsured rate of 11.7 percent is second worst in the state, our Medicare and Medicaid enrollment rates are lower than the state average.
Conversely, the individual market, which can be expensive, has a much higher rate of use than the state average.
A smaller percentage (81.7 percent) of people in our region visited a health professional in the past year than the state average (row 33 on the spreadsheet).
A smaller portion of people have dental insurance (70.6 percent) than average.
On the plus side, 78.3 percent of the people in our region did not use the ER last year, less than the state average.
Also on the plus side, our region’s mental health scores are better than average and there’s less stigma about getting treatment.
ABOUT THE SURVEY
The 2015 CHAS was a telephone survey of 10,136 randomly-selected households in Colorado, both landlines and cell phones, administered between March 2 and June 26. The margin of error for the uninsured rate of 6.7 percent is plus or minus 0.93 points, a range from 5.8 percent to 7.6 percent.
The CHAS cost $625,000 for the survey contractor, a firm called SSRS. The survey is put together and administered by the Colorado Health Institute. It is funded exclusively by the Colorado Trust, a private foundation, said Joe Hanel with the Colorado Health Institute.
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