Rise of the insured

GLENDALE — While a recently released city report shows a dramatic drop in the number of Glendale residents without health insurance between 1997 and 2007, health-care experts say the recession has likely pushed that figure back up.

The number of uninsured adults dropped from 26% in 1997 to 13.4% in 2007, according to the city’s Quality of Life Indicators Report released last week. The number of children without health insurance also dropped significantly, to 3.5% in 2007, down from 17% in 1997.

But as the recession continues to put people out of work, those figures are probably rising again, officials said. While more recent comprehensive statistics are not available with unemployment rates spiking, thousands of residents have likely lost medical coverage in the last two years.

“What we do know is that there have been some national studies that show with any increase in unemployment, you get a corresponding increase in uninsured,” said Shana Lavarreda, director of health insurance studies at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Mike Wilson, communications director for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said the county has seen an increase in requests for public medical services.

“We are hearing of a lot of people coming into the public system,” he said.

“They’ve lost their jobs. Where else do you go if you have no insurance?”

Lavarreda attributed the decrease among uninsured children in the last decade to better public programs during the same time period. After a spike in enrollment in public health-care programs for low-income children, such as the state-sponsored Healthy Families, uninsured rates across the state dropped.

But with the protracted recession, public health insurance programs like Healthy Families have struggled to accommodate the growing ranks of applicants — leaving thousands on wait lists, Lavarreda said.

“Because the employment situation is so bad, people turn to public programs,” she said.

Children’s health advocates breathed a sigh of relief this fall when thousands of children on the verge of being dropped from Healthy Families were saved after the state’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board allocated additional money.

Still, with higher premiums, some families can’t even afford the low cost coverage of the public programs, said Camille Levee executive director of Glendale Healthy Kids, a nonprofit that matches low-income and under-insured children with local medical and dental providers who volunteer their services.

“We have seen people who have had Healthy Families drop that coverage in the last 18 months because they can’t afford it,” she said.

Glendale Healthy Kids has seen a 30% increase in medical and dental services donated in each of the past two fiscal years, she added.

“I can’t tell you how many families tell me they can’t spend $10 a month for health care for their kids,” Levee said. “To them, that’s four gallons of milk.”

Get in touch MELANIE HICKEN covers City Hall. She may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at melanie.hicken@ latimes.com.