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More go without health insurance:Census figures show increase in uninsured in S.C., throughout nation
Source: Post and Courier, September 30, 2003
Written by: Jonathan Maze

Colin Deadmond lost his job and health insurance in January after his company laid off half its workforce.

Last week, the 31-year-old father of four received even worse news: Doctors had diagnosed Deadmond with an oftentimes deadly illness, acute leukemia.

Too preoccupied with his health, Deadmond hasn't given much thought to medical bills. "I'm still dealing with the shock of going through this," he said Monday from a hospital.

Deadmond is one of nearly 500,000 people in South Carolina without health coverage, according to U.S. Census information being released today. That's 12.4 percent of the population, slightly higher than it was last year and the first increase since 1996.

Nationwide, 15.2 percent of Americans lacked health coverage last year compared to 14.6 percent in 2001. The new figure represents the addition of 2.4 million uninsured people last year. That's the biggest jump since 1991, bringing the number of uninsured nationwide to 43.6 million, the Census Bureau reported.

South Carolina's figures, while higher than last year's, are lower compared with the rest of the South, which had the highest rate in the nation at 17.5 percent, according to the report.

Still, experts believe that South Carolina's numbers will grow again next year, when the Census numbers will reflect two new factors: the spike in unemployment and efforts to control enrollment in Medicaid.

The government insurance program for the poor received much of the credit for a drop in South Carolina's uninsured population in the mid- to late-1990s. But by early this year, enrollment in Medicaid was about 890,000 statewide, up more than a third since 1998, thanks to the recession.

Since reaching that peak, Medicaid lost some 70,000 enrollees over the summer after many recipients didn't meet a deadline to maintain their eligibility in the program.

The loss of coverage for those residents is bound to show up in next year's numbers, said Sue Berkowitz, director of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center in Columbia. "I would not be surprised if that happened, now that all the barriers have been put up," she said.More immediately, economic woes have created longer unemployment lines. In July, the state's unemployment rate grew to 7 percent, its highest in nine years, although the jobless figure has dropped since then to 6.2 percent.

While federal law allows workers to maintain their coverage after leaving a job, many opt not to because of the high cost.

Deadmond, a Sumter resident, has looked hard for a job since being laid off, but couldn't find anything that paid well enough to support his family, and so he was left uninsured for much of the year.

Even working Americans sometimes have trouble getting coverage. Employers, burdened by a dramatic rise in health-care premiums, have been dropping health insurance as a benefit.

A study by benefits consultant Towers Perrin released Monday showed larger employers' health insurance costs will grow 12 percent next year to a rate that will be double what it was as recently as 1999.

And earlier this month, the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation released a survey showing private health insurance premiums increased 13.9 percent this year. A family policy, on average, cost $9,068.

The Census report blamed part of the problem on a drop in the percentage of people with employer-based coverage, from 62.6 percent last year to 61.3 percent this year.

As more people lose insurance, Berkowitz believes that health care costs will rise even higher, because the uninsured are more likely to wait until they're sick to see a doctor. Then they typically go to emergency rooms, which costs more, and hospitals often are left with the bill. Those hospitals pass the costs on to insurers. "It's going to spiral to that point," Berkowitz said.

Getting health care is difficult for people without coverage. Another Kaiser study earlier this year found that 40 percent of the uninsured postponed seeking medical care, while 28 percent said they needed care but didn't get it.

Sheldon Weinstein, manager of medical social work at the Medical University of South Carolina, has seen even wealthier uninsured patients lose everything when they come down with a major illness. "They can get wiped out," he said. "A bill gets real big real fast."

Anastasia Gianopoulos has not reached that point, but the uninsured employee of a small retailer downtown spent much of her money for a long time on the medications and doctor visits needed to care for chronic asthma.

"I was always broke," said Gianopoulos, who has since enrolled in Project Care, a local nonprofit organization that provides care to the working poor in the Charleston area who can't get coverage.

Deadmond had no reason to believe he was at any risk of becoming seriously ill. He began to feel weak earlier this month. Three weeks later, he went to a doctor. A couple of days later, "they called me back with the test results," Deadmond said. "They told me I was being admitted."

Today, Deadmond is at the start of a month of intense treatment at MUSC.

Weinstein, his social worker, said Deadmond is so sick he'll probably qualify for disability benefits, which then would make him eligible for Medicaid.

"He's a pretty nice guy," Weinstein said. "He's got a good attitude. He worked most of his life, until January. He's just getting mangled by what's going on in the economy."