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Fewer without insurance in Pa.
(Beaver County Times (PA) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 27--The number of Pennsylvanians living without health-care insurance dropped slightly from 2006 to 2007, according to new numbers released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
But that doesn't match the experience locally, according to the Hospital Council of Western Pennsylvania, which says its institutions have been dealing with escalating costs associated with uncompensated care for several years.
"If you're looking at costs that our hospitals have to cover due to uncompensated care, you're seeing rising numbers over the last several years," said Patricia Raffaele, the council's vice president for advocacy and communication. "It's a serious problem, and can be a serious expense for the hospitals in western Pennsylvania."
Raffaele said the region's hospitals reported expenses related to uncompensated care -- a combination of charity care, or providing services to those who cannot pay, and bad debt -- of about $91 million in 2005. That figure jumped to $121 million in 2006.
"We're seeing more and more cases where the hospitals have to come up with money to cover the cost of caring for uninsured and underinsured patients," she said. "We're still completing 2007 numbers, but it looks like that trend will continue."
Michael Pound can be reached online at mpound@timesonline.com.
Pennsylvania
Total without health insurance
2006: 12,345,000
2007: 12,313,000
Change: Down 0.2 percent
Age 18 and younger without health insurance
2006: 203,000
2007: 207,000
Change: Up 2 percent
Age 65 and older without health insurance
2006: 33,000
2007: 13,000
Change: Down 61 percent
Uncompensated care as a share of expenses
The percentage of overall expenses associated with uncompensated care at local hospitals in 2007, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council:
Aliquippa Community Hospital (now Commonwealth Medical Center): 2.18 percent
Ellwood City Hospital: 2.19 percent
The Medical Center, Beaver: 1.42 percent
Sewickley Valley Hospital: 1.52 percent
Our neighbors
As was the case in Pennsylvania, the number of New Yorkers without health insurance fell from 2006 to 2007. However, the numbers tell a different story in Ohio and West Virginia, where a greater number of residents went without health insurance in 2007 than the year before.
New York: Down 143,000, or 5 percent
Ohio: Up 183,000, or 14 percent
West Virginia: Up 10,000, or 4 percent
To see more of Beaver County Times, Pa., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesonline.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, Beaver County Times, Pa.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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