Categories
Miscellany

For the Record

Retrograde in health care

A new study from the university’s Sheps Center confirms that North Carolina is falling further behind when it comes to health care.

The percentage of uninsured North Carolinians grew to 1,314,238 people, a rise from 15.3 percent of the population in 2000 to 17.2 percent in 2005.

The center produced maps of the state by legislative district to let each of our state senators and representatives know where their district stands when it comes to percent of uninsured.

The maps remind us in plain detail that around the tip of the state to the west and in vast swaths of the coastal plain, poverty still has a tight hold on many. In Tyrell County, more than 27 percent of the residents are uninsured. It’s one of dozens of counties where between 20 and 25 percent of the residents have no insurance.

As Mark Holmes, a Sheps researcher and one of the study’s authors points out, the uninsured are 25 percent more likely to die a premature death.

If you think that here in more affluent Orange County we are much better off, guess again. Even though we’re just behind Wake County in the highest number of insured, a full 15 percent of Orange County residents are uninsured. Broken down even further, we find that while the county ranks second highest in number of insured adults, it falls to fifth when it comes to children, with 9.6 percent, or 2,472, of those aged 0-17 uninsured.

In all, the study put the number of uninsured residents in Orange County at 16,104 — a number that’s likely to have grown since 2005.

The state has made little headway in dealing with the growing costs in dollars, productivity and lives. One bright spot happened this week with the passage by the state House of a high-risk insurance pool to help improve coverage for some of the hardest to insure.

But we still have a long way to go. And, as the new study reminds us, we’re still stuck in reverse.

A call for subscriptions

We extend a hardy congratulations and humble thanks to the 123 people who have taken us up on our offer to become charter subscribers to The Carrboro Citizen.

It’s been fun learning the routes and the neighborhoods and some nooks and crannies we never knew existed.

One unexpected outcome of our offer of free in-town home delivery was a demand from outside the immediate area.

To satisfy that demand, with this issue we’re switching to paid subscriptions to support our home delivery efforts. (Charter subscribers will be grandfathered).

We are also expanding our home delivery range to include most of Chapel Hill and southern Orange County.

Yearlong subscriptions are available for $26 and six-month subscriptions are available for $15.

If you would like to become a subscriber or purchase one as a gift for someone else, please contact us at delivery@carrborocitizen.com or sign up at our subscriptions site at www.ibiblio.org/carrborocitizen/subscribe

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