The Growing National Uninsured Health Care Crisis
The Uninsured Problem in Lane County
History of the Volunteers In Medicine Clinic in Lane County
Support for the VIM Clinic
The Growing National Uninsured Health Care Crisis
As health insurance premiums grow, the number of uninsured Americans grows as well. This trend appears to be driven primarily by economic factors. A report published in November, 1997, shattered some widely held myths about the 47 million Americans—one in every six—who are not covered by health insurance.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study, the rising number of uninsured is not the result of businesses and government cutting back on the number of people being offered coverage. In fact, they found that the percentage of workers offered insurance at work has increased slightly over the past decade, to 75 percent from 72 percent of all workers.
What has changed, however, is that the percentage of workers taking up the offer of health insurance has declined to 80 percent from 88 percent. This decline in take-up rate is particularly noticeable among young workers and those making less than $10 per hour.
It's not hard to speculate on what's causing this. As employers have moved aggressively to limit their exposure to rising health care costs, employees at many firms have had to pick up more of the tab, in the form of higher premium payments, deductibles and co-payments. At the same time, the variety of choice employees are being offered is declining to the point that half of all workers now have only one plan to choose. At the other end of the spectrum, the accounting firm of KPMG Peat Marwick found that only one in four workers had a choice of three or more health plans last year, down from one in three the year before.
This combination of increased cost and reduced choice seems to have led more workers to conclude that health insurance wasn't a very good deal.
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The Uninsured Problem in Lane County
A compassionate community will concern itself with people's most basic needs, including health care. No one should ever go without basic health care, least of all in this country of great wealth. Inadequate access to health care consistently ranks as one of the top problems in Lane County. Despite the best efforts of private physicians, hospital emergency rooms, non-profit clinics and public health agencies, people continue to slip through the cracks. Certainly many such experiences involve fear and physical suffering intensified through lack of human medical support.
An estimated 28,000 Lane County citizens - our friends and neighbors - are without health insurance. No one knows how many of these people decline or are unable to seek care from existing resources. But we do know this:
- People without insurance may lack the skills necessary to navigate through our health care system and avail themselves of existing resources.
- There is no "one-size-fits-all" solution. Because we are members of a pluralistic society, we need to develop a multi-faceted approach to helping the uninsured, until all who lack health care are served. Few challenges present greater opportunities.
- By refusing or delaying appropriate care, minor conditions become major health threats that are more costly and more difficult to treat. Local emergency rooms treat more than 1,000 uninsured people a year for conditions preventable with routine medical care.
- The uninsured tend to seek and find care in inappropriate settings, which can lead to higher costs and overburdened systems. For example, in dealing with the uninsured, local ERs routinely address complaints resulting from high blood pressure, toothaches, and asthma, conditions better treated in a doctor's office or public health clinics.
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History of the Volunteers In Medicine Clinic in Lane County
In early 1999, a group of interested Eugene/Springfield citizens began meeting to explore establishing a clinic for the uninsured and underinsured, modeled after a successful South Carolina clinic. Convened by Sister Monica Heeran, former administrator of Sacred Heart Medical Center, the group included physicians, representatives from Springfield and Eugene hospitals, and retired and active business leaders.
The group incorporated as a non-profit organization, The Volunteers In Medicine Clinic, in August, 1999. The board has worked with other agencies and providers to assure that efforts to reach the uninsured are expanded, not duplicated. A vacant medical clinic on West 11th Avenue has been secured for at least five years, beginning in October, 2000, from which to provide services in a part of town that has no such clinic currently.
To guide its work, the VIM Board uses the following criteria:
- A documented need for current and proposed clinic services must exist.
- The clinic is based on volunteerism.
- The clinic is a community wide effort.
- All involved with the clinic are treated with dignity, respect and appreciation.
- The clinic fills unmet needs; there is to be no duplication nor competition with existing programs.
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Support for the VIM Clinic
The VIM Clinic is a community-based initiative that is largely supported by volunteerism. Information about supporting the clinic and applying to be a volunteer at the VIM Clinic are found elsewhere on this Web site.
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