By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer
In 2010, Todd County
had Kentucky ’s
third-highest rate of people without health insurance, according to new data
from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Of roughly 10,458 people below age 65, the county had about
2,455 who didn’t have health insurance. That’s 23.5 percent.
The only counties topping it were
Casey and Monroe.
Judge-Executive Daryl Greenfield
noted that Todd has a fairly high number of people who are self-employed. Many
don’t get health insurance from their companies and can’t afford to buy it
independently, he said.
But on the other hand, a large
share of the population commutes to Christian or Logan counties or to Clarksville , Tenn. ,
for jobs, he said. So the self-employed workers don’t by themselves explain the
high rate.
“I don’t know exactly why it’d be
that much higher than other counties around,” he said.
The census bureau released these
figures last week. They include estimates of health insurance coverage for
every county in the U.S. ,
and users can get additional information on the breakdown by age and income
level.
Of Kentucky ’s 120 counties, Christian’s
uninsured rate ranked 97th. Out of roughly 61,557 people who were not senior
citizens, about 10,759 in this county lacked health insurance. This makes a
percentage of 17.5.
Trigg’s uninsured rate ranked
24th. Of 11,531 people, about 2,410 didn’t have insurance. That’s a percentage
of 20.9.
These figures exclude senior
citizens because they typically qualify for Medicare. However, the figures
don’t distinguish between people who simply can’t afford insurance and those
who choose not to buy it. Sometimes the distinction between those two groups
gets blurry.
In general, Todd’s unemployment
rate didn’t stand out from other Kentucky
counties during 2010. That year it averaged an unemployment rate of 10.6
percent, compared to 12 percent in Christian
County and 11.7 percent in Trigg County .
Counties whose economies depend
on agriculture often have high uninsured rates, because so many farming jobs
don’t come with employer-sponsored health plans. But the census bureau recorded
fewer than 19 farming jobs in Todd
County in 2010.
By contrast, 292 residents
reported that they had manufacturing jobs in Todd County ,
and 226 said they worked in health care or “social assistance.”
The state government has a chance
to expand the Medicaid program as part of the Affordable Care Act. The federal
government would foot most — but not all — of the bill.
If it takes the expansion,
roughly 1,170 poor Todd
County residents who
don’t have insurance would likely qualify for Medicaid. (This doesn’t account
for changes since 2010.) All of those uninsured people fall below 138 percent
of the federal poverty line.
Another 1,083 people in Trigg and
5,190 in Christian would qualify, according to the census data.
The New Era could not reach Jen Harris, director of the
Todd County Health Department, for comment.
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