Survey Finds One in Five West Virginians Without Health Insurance

Almost one out of every five West Virginia adults, or about 220,000 people, lacks health insurance, according to a survey thought to be the most comprehensive in state history, the Charleston Gazette reports. The survey of 16,500 households, conducted last year by the Institute for Health Policy Research at West Virginia University, determined that on "any given day" 19.9% of residents ages 19 to 64 have no health insurance and that almost 27% had been without health coverage "at some point" during that year. The survey showed that 61% of state residents without health insurance are employed and that many of their employers provide health coverage. Forty-six percent of survey respondents cited the cost of health insurance as reason they were uninsured, followed by 9% of respondents who said that no household member had been offered insurance. The survey indicates that people with low-paying jobs are less likely to have insurance because their employers mostly do not offer health plans; only one in four residents with annual incomes of $20,000 or less had health insurance. Sally Richardson, executive director of the Institute for Health Policy Research, said, "One of the problems in West Virginia is that we are moving from large industries, which almost always insure their employees, to small businesses, which may or may not," adding that many workers are "unable to afford health insurance coverage even when [their] employer offers it." Richardson delivered the survey results to the state Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability. Despite the state's uninsurance rate, the survey found that both insured and uninsured West Virginians had "surprisingly reasonable access to health care for a small, rural state," with 82.4% of respondents saying that they had access to medical services when they needed them (Kabler, Charleston Gazette, 7/17).