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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
N.M. at Top of Uninsured List
By Susan Montoya Bryan
Associated Press
A new study puts New Mexico at the top of the list when it comes to workers without health insurance.
More than 1 in 4 New Mexico workers ages 19 to 64 were without coverage in 2006-07, according to a study released Tuesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Nationally, nearly 1 in 5 workers were uninsured, a statistically significant increase from fewer than 1 in 7 during the mid-1990s.
New Mexico's 28.1 percent of uninsured workers was followed by 28 percent in Texas. The state with the fewest uninsured workers was Hawaii at 9 percent.
New Mexico officials have yet to see the report but acknowledged that U.S. Census figures put the state's average percentage of uninsured residents — regardless of age — at 21.9 percent for the three years ending in 2007.
"We are aware of that," Human Services Department spokeswoman Betina Gonzales McCracken said of the uninsured rate. "We are doing as much as we can to get out to communities across the state and just get the word out about the different programs that are available to people."
There are currently 480,000 people enrolled in a Medicaid-funded program, with nearly 300,000 of them children, McCracken said, explaining that the state has focused in recent years on ensuring that children are covered.
Still, the state recognizes that workers — who are too old to receive Medicaid benefits and too young for Medicare programs — are a vulnerable population.
"There's a lot of reasons this population is highly uninsured, and we've done some things to try to reach this population, and the State Coverage Insurance Program is one of the them," McCracken said.
The program currently insures more than 31,000 adults with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that equals a monthly income of less than $3,534. Under the program, employers and employees help pay the health insurance premiums along with the state and federal government.
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