Crisis: health-care gap

WASHINGTON — The lack of affordable health care is becoming an epidemic problem across the nation. And it is acute in Utah, where 18.2 percent of all working adults cannot afford health insurance.

According to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control data by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Utah had the 14th highest rate of uninsured working adults among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. If all adults ages 18 to 64 are considered, the state ranks 19th highest with an uninsured rate of 18.9 percent, the study found.

The study was released Wednesday as part of Cover the Uninsured Week 2005, a bipartisan effort to raise public awareness of the health-care affordability crisis. That effort dovetails with legislation sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that calls for a national dialogue on the health-care crisis and mandatory congressional hearings on the findings of town hall meetings in all 50 states.

"We want to hear from people outside of Washington, D.C.," Hatch said, adding lawmakers want to know what consumers like and don't like about the current health-care system.

Wyden and Hatch agree the problem is not going to be fixed with a one-size-fits-all solution imposed from Washington. Rather, the Health Care That Works for All Americans Act reaches out to average citizens to come up with new ideas that can help avert a total collapse of the current system.

Wyden pointed out that $1.8 trillion is spent every year on health care, an amount that — if it were divided among the population — comes to $6,400 per person. But no one really knows how it is all being spent.

"I've always believed that (health care) is by far and away the most important issue on the domestic front," Wyden said.

And, he added, the uninsured "serve as the canary in the health-care coal mine" by illustrating the inherent problems when a major portion of the population cannot afford adequate health care.

Hatch recognized that many in the pool of the uninsured ignore their health problems until the ailment becomes severe and much more expensive to treat. Earlier treatment means lower health-care costs, he said.

According to the foundation study, Utah has the highest rate of uninsured adults with children in the household (ranked 51), and it has the second highest rate of uninsured Hispanics with 54.7 percent (ranked 50).

Of all the uninsured in Utah, 32.1 percent said they had been unable to afford health care in the past 12 months, compared to 10 percent of the insured population. And 59.8 percent of the uninsured had no personal doctor or health-care provider, compared to 22.5 percent of the insured population.