Outlook for New York City Health Insurance Not Good, Report Says

In a recent report, titled "Health Care Access Among Adults in New York" , the city of New York has released information in regard to health insurance and health care of people living within the city boundaries.

All the data on the report was gathered by telephone in what is known as New York City Community Health Survey, an effort of the city government to understand health care issues for New Yorkers.

The report states that 1 million New Yorkers are uninsured and 70% of those were actually working. Having a job seems no guarantee of health insurance in New York City.

The study also found that around 900,000 New Yorkers did not fill a prescription because of cost Those who were uninsured were twice as likely to not fill a prescription (24% -insured vs. 14% non-insured). The study highlight that certain groups of New Yorkers are more likely to be uninsured.

Hispanics is the group with the highest proportion of uninsured citizen. Twenty-5% of Hispanics is uninsured. Men are more likely to be uninsured in New York, being 21% the proportion of uninsured men while uninsured women represent 13% (almost twice uninsured men than women).

As expected, unemployed people are more likely to be uninsured when compared to employed personnel. In New York city, 26% of uninsured people are unemployed while 18% is employed. However, almost 70% of uninsured people are employed. Job is no guarantee oh health care or health insurance.

One shocking finding is that many of the uninsured people living in New York City many could have Health Insurance since they qualify according to income level and other qualifications. More than 285000 (1 in 4 uninsured people) could qualify for health insurance under public programs such as Medicaid.

Another shocking finding is that people with insurance also have been without insurance in the past 12 months. This is about 480,000 (8%) of insured people in New York.

The report recommends that uninsured people explore options to get medical care they may need. Some of the recommendations are:

-Find Out If You Qualify For Insurance - New Yorkers can learn whether they qualify for public and subsidized health insurance through AccessNYC at NYC.gov/accessnyc

- Explore a program called Take Care New York Passport which can help New Yorkers track health issues and get the treatments you need. The passport can be found at NYC.gov/health/tcny

- Visit City Health Clinics.

Source:

Health Care Access Among Adults in New York. 2007. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. URL:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/hca/hca-nyc-adults.pdf