Lack of Health Insurance Plagues Many, Study Finds

Cecilia Perez has no insurance, and finances are tight. So when she got the flu, she said she resisted going to a doctor for four months--until she couldn’t handle the aches and fatigue anymore. That decision wound up costing her about $200 in doctor’s visits and medicine because she’s uninsured.

Perez, 30, of Santa Ana is one of 4,816 people surveyed recently by the Orange County Congregation Community Organizations on access to health care and health insurance. Some results were released Monday by the group, a church-based coalition whose goal is to increase health care coverage in Orange County.

“When people can see the names, the addresses and the faces [of the uninsured], it makes the issue more real,” said Corey Timpson, director of the coalition.

Although only 25% of the answers have been tabulated, the group reports that 79% of the respondents are not covered by health insurance and 62% have at least one child not covered.

The results come as community organizations grow more frustrated over the government’s failure to expand free or subsidized health insurance programs.

The study isn’t scientific; the group is interviewing parishioners of member churches as well as community residents. The results are expected later this month.

But the early findings mirror those of national studies that put California behind the national average in the number of insured people. About 22% of Californians lack health insurance; nationally, the number is 17%.

Orange County Health Care Agency spokeswoman Pat Markley said she is not familiar with the coalition’s survey but knows that her agency has done studies showing a similar lack of health insurance--and for information about existing problems.

The coalition’s survey would be “another channel of communication with the community. All these efforts are useful,” Markley said.

County residents interviewed by the coalition had only some familiarity with programs such as Medicare, Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, a state program that provides free insurance to families with incomes of less than about $40,000 for a family of four.

Perez, a survey participant, lost her family’s health insurance last year when she quit her job as a supermarket meat packer. She felt her young children were suffering because she worked nights.

But the family could not afford the premiums for health insurance provided at her husband’s company, where he is a machine operator. About a year ago, they began living without insurance.

Before she knew about Healthy Families, she and her husband paid about $2,000 in medical bills at Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center when their 6-year-old son fell and split his chin.

Now the children are covered through the state program. But because it doesn’t insure parents, when Perez has a medical problem, she either skips doctor’s visits or pays cash. When she had the flu, she paid $50 for two visits and $150 for antibiotics.

“I feel that this information needs to get out, that people need to see what families like mine are going through,” said Perez, who owns her home with her husband, has 6-year-old twin boys and a year-old son.

Perez and other members of the faith-based organization are writing letters to Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson to urge him to approve a federal waiver that would expand Healthy Families to include the parents of about 300,000 children in the program. Parents would pay $20 to $25 a month for coverage.

The state estimates that if the waiver were granted, enrollment would increase by 170,000 parents and 130,000 children within a year.

In the meantime, the church-based coalition, with help from the nonprofit health education organization Latino Health Access, has dispatched health workers to 10 congregations.