Business Insurance, December 13, 2010

By: Joanne Wojcik

Whenever I attend a health benefits conference that addresses wellness issues, I often am greeted with a bit of envy because I come from what many consider to be the fittest state in the union. It’s generally assumed that everyone who lives in Colorado is into mountaineering, bicycling or skiing, depending on the time of year. But while Colorado may have the lowest obesity rate in the nation at 18.9%, it is questionable whether that alone is enough to lower the prevalence of chronic disease in the population. In reality, access to health insurance and health care has a much bigger effect, regardless of how much one weighs.

According to “America’s Health Rankings,” published this month by the United Health Foundation, a nonprofit established by UnitedHealth Group Inc.; the American Public Health Assn., which represents public health professionals; and the Partnership for Prevention, a coalition of business, nonprofit and governmental leaders, the United States is losing ground because of its high uninsured population—15.6%—and its low immunization rates among children 19 months to 35 months old.

Childhood immunization coverage in Colorado actually decreased from 92.1% in 2009 to 85% in 2010. Perhaps that is due in part to the percentage of children younger than 18 in poverty increasing from from 11.6% a decade ago to 18.2% in 2010.

Conversely, the report found that several other states have been making great strides in improving the health of their populations. According to the report, Vermont is the healthiest state, based on measures such as its low uninsured rate of 9.6%, its lower percentage of children in poverty at 12%, and its ready access to early prenatal care, as 83.5% of pregnant women receive such care in the first trimester.

Critics of Massachusetts’ health reform law, after which the federal reform law was modeled, will be surprised to learn that it actually helped the state move up a notch to No. 2 in the AHR rankings.

Massachusetts’ steadily declining uninsured rate, now at 5%, is down from the previous year’s low of 5.4%. Massachusetts also has a low prevalence of smoking, which dropped to 14.9% in 2010 from 18.5% five years ago, and high rates of immunization, with 93.4% of children 19 months to 35 months old receiving vaccinations.

Massachusetts supplanted Utah, which dropped five notches from No. 2 to No. 7 even though the state has the lowest smoking rate in the country at 9.8% of the population. The biggest strikes against Utah were its limited availability of primary care physicians; increasing rate of children in poverty, growing from 8.8% in 2009 to 13.9% in 2010; and its high uninsured rate, 14% of the population.

New Hampshire, with a 10.4% uninsured rate, is the new No. 3.

Meanwhile, Colorado slid from No. 8 to No. 13.

Overall, the nation’s health improved by one percentage point last year, the report found. That’s because the reductions in tobacco use, preventable hospitalizations and infectious disease it documented were not enough to offset continuing increases in obesity rates, children living in poverty and the lack of health insurance.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 51 million U.S. residents have no health insurance. In “America’s Health Rankings,” the uninsured increased from to 16% of the U.S. population in 2010 from 15.3% in 2009 and 13.9% in 2001.

Only time will tell whether the health reform law, which requires virtually everyone to have health insurance, can turn things around.

To find out how your state measures up, go to www. americashealthrankings.org.

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This entry was posted by Adam V. Russo on Wednesday, December 15th, 2010 at 9:43 am and is filed under Health Care Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.