The Facts

It is a Fact . . .
The health of our nation is increasingly at risk as the cost of health care continues to skyrocket. Due to these rising costs, many employers can no longer afford to offer health benefits, leaving employees in a position of being underinsured or without health insurance coverage. This is a critical situation that not only impacts an individual but the health of their family and community.

The Impact of Inadequate Health Coverage can be Severe
Many uninsured individuals tend to postpone preventive care—resulting in serious health risks, higher mortality rates and increased expenses to the health care system. These expenses are often passed on to the general population in the form of higher insurance premiums and medical expenses – thereby creating a perpetual cycle affecting the health and well-being of our country.

Compounding this critical situation are the complex conditions that threaten the health of every community, such as: chronic illness, teen pregnancy, domestic abuse and child neglect.

Advocates for Improved Community Health
Q Health Services is focusing on a fundamental triad of interdependent goals for improving the health of communities: access, quality and knowledge through collaboration.

Minnesotans Can't Afford the Status Quo (from the Federal HHS website)

• Roughly 3.6 million people in Minnesota get health insurance on the job, where family premiums average $13,184, about the annual earning of a full-time minimum wage job.
• Since 2000 alone, average family premiums have increased by 90 percent in Minnesota. 
• Household budgets are strained by high costs: 22 percent of middle-income Minnesota families spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care.
• High costs block access to care: 10 percent of people in Minnesota report not visiting a doctor due to high costs.
• Minnesota businesses and families shoulder a hidden health tax of roughly $400 per year on premiums as a direct result of subsidizing the costs of the uninsured.

Affordable Health Coverage is increasingly out of reach in Minnesota

• 9 percent of people in Minnesota are uninsured, and 69 percent of them are in families with at least one full-time worker.
• The percent of Minnesotans with employer coverage is declining: from 73 to 68 percent between 2000 and 2007.
• Much of the decline is among workers in small businesses. While small businesses make up 76 percent of Minnesota businesses, only 38 percent of them offered health coverage benefits in 2006 -- down 6 percent since 2000.
• Choice of health insurance is limited in Minnesota. Blue Cross Blue Shield MN alone constitutes 50 percent of the health insurance market share in Minnesota, with the top two insurance providers accounting for 76 percent.
• Choice is even more limited for people with pre-existing conditions. In Minnesota, premiums can vary, within limits, based on demographic factors and health status, and coverage can even be denied completely.

Minnesotans Need Higher Quality, Greater Value, and More Preventative Care

• While the overall quality of care in Minnesota is rated as “Strong,” the quality of chronic care is rated as “Average.”
• Preventative measures that could keep Minnesotans healthier and out of the hospital are deficient, leading to problems across the age spectrum:
  • 11 percent of children in Minnesota are obese.
  • 20 percent of women over the age of 50 in Minnesota have not received a mammogram in the past two years.
  • 29 percent of men over the age of 50 in Minnesota have never had a colorectal cancer screening.
  • 79 percent of adults over the age of 65 in Minnesota have received a flu vaccine in the past year.

The need for reform in Minnesota and across the country is clear. Minnesota families simply can’t afford the status quo and deserve better. President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass health reform this year that reduces costs for families, businesses and government; protects people’s choice of doctors, hospitals and health plans; and assures affordable, quality health care for all Americans.

A study reported in the American Journal of Medicine found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills. (New York Times, 8/2009)