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SALT LAKE CITY -- Roughly one in ten Utahns had no insurance in 2010, according to Utah Department of Health numbers released May 18.
UDOH Health Data Director Barry Nangle told the Legislature's health care task force that 10.6 percent of Utahns have no insurance. This number is down from 11.2 percent last year, but does not indicate a statistically significant drop. Essentially, the numbers tell the same story - over 300,000 people are uninsured in the state.
In his address to the task force, Nangle also said that the survey "understates the level of the uninsured, probably by four or five percentage points." This could represent another 100,000 people.
- 12.3 percent of children 0-18 who were eligible for CHIP and whose parents had incomes up to twice the federal poverty level are still uninsured.
- 28.6 percent people aged 19-26 had no insurance
- 39.9 percent of people who were eligible for the Primary Care Network, and who had incomes 1.5 times the federal poverty level, were uninsured.
- 23.9 percent of self-employed people aged 19-64 were uninsured.
- 18.8 percent of people with only part time employment and aged 19-64 were unemployed.
Nangle said this is because the survey relies only on calling those with landline telephone numbers and ignores cell phone numbers, excluding many young people, who are most likely to be uninsured, from the data.
The level of the uninsured has been increasing slowly since 2001, according to the presentation to the task force, with a dip in 2007. However, Nangle had no explanation for this one year dip.
In a press release, UDOH Executive Director David Patton stressed pursuing "policies and strategies - such as the Utah Health Insurance Exchange - that will provide our citizens with access to high-quality, affordable health care coverage."
The exchange, signed into law by Governor Huntsman in 2009, is intended to make it easier for small business owners and employees to get access to insurance by allowing them to compare and choose among several options.
However, the exchange is not available to individuals who are self-employed or their families, a demographic with one of the highest uninsured rates at almost 24 percent, more than double the average rate for all Utahans.
The highest uninsured rate was among adults aged 19 to 26 at 28.6 percent, while almost everyone over 65 was insured due to Medicare.
