Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Missouri’s Health Insurance Sliding, Pt.1 – Finally, some hard evidence.

Findings show that the rate of Missourians without health insurance is steadily growing. This is not exactly breaking news to those who live there, but some hard figures are finally available. Emily Baucum has reported the rundown and posted them on OzarksFirst.com. She cites results of the work of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from a 5-year study. In the five years, it was determined that the rate of the population going without health insurance has risen by 30%. Even though the data only included up to 2005, this is because it has taken a while to finalize the conclusions. Again, the problem is widespread knowledge – those who have been providing care for the uninsured report the problem being worse than ever. A typical scenario might be a middle-aged woman starting a new job at a restaurant. She supports herself and is off on her own. However, her typical employer won’t offer her health insurance ‘til she has worked there for a year. She’ll probably have to wait well over a year for a first checkup.

The state of Missouri has the 5th worst growth rate of those without health insurance in the nation. The free clinics are just about maxed out. There seems to little hope of things getting better. One such clinic is called The Kitchen Clinic. Dr. Judy Dasovich, who is from that clinic starts out with "It's a huge problem." Their clinic is operating at full capacity now. The people around are so hard-pressed by the cost of living, that they have to let go of their health insurance to pay other bills. So they use the free clinic, instead

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