Minnesota Minority Groups ‘Far’ More Likely Than Whites to Lack Insurance, Health Department Survey Finds

Minorities in Minnesota are "far less likely" to have insurance than white residents, a survey by the state Department of Health found. In the survey of 27,000 people, 4.6% of whites lacked insurance, compared with 17.7% of Hispanics and 15.7% of blacks. In 1999, 14.2% of whites, 33.4% of Hispanics and 14.2% of blacks lacked insurance in the United States. Elaine Cunningham, director of the covering kids project for the Children's Defense Fund, said, "This has been the first survey that's really clarified what we suspected." Overall, Minnesota's number of uninsured is "considerably lower" than the national average, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. However, the gap between insurance rates for white and minority groups in Minnesota is larger than the gap nationwide --three times as many Minnesota Hispanics lack insurance as do whites, compared with two times as many uninsured Hispanics as whites nationally. The Star Tribune reports that high rates of uninsurance among minority groups could "help explain why they have far worse health problems than whites with infant mortality, cancer, heart disease and STDs." State Sen. Linda Berglin (DFL) said, "The message here is that health disparities aren't just a matter of ethnic groups being treated differently by the medical community. It goes to the heart of not having access to health care at all." The survey also shows that the number of uninsured children is higher than what officials previously had estimated. Officials had thought that 3.3% of children under age 18 were uninsured, but the actual figure is 4.5%.

The 'Difficult Part'
Now the "difficult part" is determining why minorities do not or cannot access public health insurance programs such as Medicaid or MinnesotaCare, the Star Tribune reports. Cathy Liuken, a social worker for the city of Minneapolis, said that some families without legal status are told erroneously that they are ineligible for health insurance because it could affect their immigration status. She added that other minorities "fear" or "misunderstan[d]" the U.S. health system or "distrust" government programs. Michael O'Keefe, state Health Department commissioner, said the state has worked to address the "bureaucracy" associated with the state's health programs. For example, the department reduced its medical assistance application from 22 pages to four. In addition, the state Legislature is considering measures that would "simplify" program eligibility for children, he said (Marcotty, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 6/26).