The economy is recovering, but the percentage of Minnesotans without health insurance remains as high now as it did two years ago

Abstract

Welcome to Public Health Moment from the University of Minnesota. The economy is recovering, but the percentage of Minnesotans without health insurance remains as high now as it did two years ago at the official end of the great recession. In 2011, 9.1 percent of Minnesotans were without health insurance, which is unchanged from 2009. That’s according to findings from the Minnesota Department of Health and the University of Minnesota. That’s the average. But Minnesotans of color continue to have dramatically higher rates of uninsurance. Kathleen Call, associate professor of health policy at the University of Minnesota, explains. <Call: “The rate of uninsurance for the state as a whole is 9 percent, where it’s twice that for African Americans, almost twice that for American Indians and it’s 26 percent among Hispanic/Latino population in the state. So, that’s a significantly higher rate than is true for the state as a whole. The good news is it hasn’t been increasing. But the bad news is, that’s quite a disparity.”> On the bright side, a greater percentage of young adults had health insurance coverage in 2011 than in 2009. Call believes this is a result of state policy changes and federal health reform that extended the age under which young adults could continue to be covered by their parents’ health insurance. <Call: “And we are seeing that they are gaining access to insurance through their parents and guardians. So, there’s evidence that that law is actually making a difference for that age group. So, policies do work.”>