MEDIA RELEASE
Contact:
Paul Quinn, Director of Communications, Health Policy Institute of Ohio
(614) 545-0754
pquinn@healthpolicyohio.org
Ohio Survey Shows
Fewer Uninsured Children; More Uninsured Adults
More Ohio children have health care
coverage now than in 2004, according to results from the 2008 Ohio Family
Health Survey. The number of children without insurance dropped to 4 percent in
2008 from 5.4 percent in 2004.
“An increase in the number of children covered under
the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and outreach
efforts by Ohio’s
Medicaid program are a key factor in the reduction in uninsured children over
the last four years,” said William Hayes, president of the Health Policy
Institute of Ohio.
The
survey also found, that more working age adults are now uninsured, increasing
from an estimated 1,055,651 or 15 percent to 1,220,895 or 17 percent, in 2008.
“A stark reality is more than a quarter of independent workers in Ohio are uninsured.
These folks rely on Ohio’s
individual market for coverage; however, many cannot obtain coverage in the
individual market because of pre-existing conditions and a weak open-enrollment
program,” said Ohio Department of Insurance Director Mary Jo Hudson. “A key
reason for the increase in uninsured 18-to-64-year-olds is a decline in the
percentage of Ohioans with job-based coverage, which fell
nearly 2% since 2004. Finally, there is a significant increase in the
percentage of people not working.”
With more
than 51,000 households interviewed, the Ohio Family Health Survey is one of the
largest and most comprehensive state-level health and insurance surveys
conducted in the country. The project was managed by The Ohio State University’s Ohio Colleges
of Medicine Government Resource
Center, and the Health
Policy Institute of Ohio and the survey was conducted by Macro International.
The Ohio Departments of Insurance, Job and Family Services, Health, and Mental
Health, the Cleveland
State University,
and the Ohio Board of Regents funded the project.
Presentation materials and regional demographic tables
can be downloaded by the media from the OFHS collaboration web site: http://ofhs.webexone.com.
Log in as username: ofhsmedia; password: ofhsmedia.
OFHS results are scheduled to be released publicly at
a forum at 12 p.m. Monday at The Makoy Center, 5462 Center St. in Hilliard.
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