Health News
- Improving Kentuckians' Health Will Require Education, Fighting Poverty; Poor And Less Educated Have Poorer Health, Study Shows
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Increased access to insurance is just one part of the equation to improve the health of Kentuckians, improving poverty and increasing education levels are disparities that must also be addressed if Kentucky ever...
- Economic Upturn Boosts Share Of Kentuckians On Employer-based Health Coverage; Health Reform Boosts Number On Public Plans
Half of Kentucky's working-age adults now get health insurance through their employers, up from 37 percent two years ago, reversing a downward trend that began with the Great Recession. Meanwhile, under federal health reform, many more Kentuckians...
- 28% Of Ky. Adults 18-64 Say They Lack Health Coverage; 41% Lacked It Sometime In Last Year; Employer Coverage Down Since '08
Nearly three in 10 working-age adults in Kentucky are not covered by any form of health insurance, and the number who get health insurance from their employer, or their spouse?s employer, has plummeted since 2008, the first year of the Great Recession,...
- Children's Health And Education Improves In Kentucky, But One In Four Kids Lives In Poverty, Report Shows
New data show one in four Kentucky children live in poverty, a sharp increase since 2005, but the state is improving when it comes to children's health and education. These were the latest findings in the influential Kids Count report by the Annie...
- Expanding Medicaid Will Save The State Money By Eliminating Much Expense On The Uninsured, Think Tank And Op-ed Writer Argue
If Kentucky chooses to expand Medicaid eligibility up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, the state will gain in key areas, argues Jason Bailey, director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, right, in an op-ed piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader....
Health News
Last year, 17.4 percent of Kentuckians lived in poverty and 17.5 percent did not have health insurance
More than one in six Kentuckians lived in poverty last year and almost exactly the same number didn't have health insurance, preliminary U.S. Census numbers show.
The state's poverty rate was 17.4 percent and the uninsured rate was 17.5 percent. Nationwide, 15.1 percent of Americans lived in poverty and 16.3 percent were without health insurance in 2010, reports Valarie Honeycutt Spears of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
To be considered to be living below the poverty line, a family of four must earn less than $22,314 each year.
About 640,000 Kentuckians do not have health insurance. Those numbers have risen as employers have stopped offering coverage to employees, said Jason Bailey, director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. In 2000, 65 percent of Kentuckians had employer-based insurance, but in 2010 only 57 percent did.
Medicaid, which provides coverage for the country's poor and disabled, covered almost 1 in 5 Kentuckians in 2010, up from 1 in 10 in 2000, Bailey said. "The percent of children covered by Medicaid in Kentucky rose 6 percentage points since 2007-08, to 40 percent, keeping the number of uninsured children low," Spears reports. (Read more)
- Improving Kentuckians' Health Will Require Education, Fighting Poverty; Poor And Less Educated Have Poorer Health, Study Shows
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Increased access to insurance is just one part of the equation to improve the health of Kentuckians, improving poverty and increasing education levels are disparities that must also be addressed if Kentucky ever...
- Economic Upturn Boosts Share Of Kentuckians On Employer-based Health Coverage; Health Reform Boosts Number On Public Plans
Half of Kentucky's working-age adults now get health insurance through their employers, up from 37 percent two years ago, reversing a downward trend that began with the Great Recession. Meanwhile, under federal health reform, many more Kentuckians...
- 28% Of Ky. Adults 18-64 Say They Lack Health Coverage; 41% Lacked It Sometime In Last Year; Employer Coverage Down Since '08
Nearly three in 10 working-age adults in Kentucky are not covered by any form of health insurance, and the number who get health insurance from their employer, or their spouse?s employer, has plummeted since 2008, the first year of the Great Recession,...
- Children's Health And Education Improves In Kentucky, But One In Four Kids Lives In Poverty, Report Shows
New data show one in four Kentucky children live in poverty, a sharp increase since 2005, but the state is improving when it comes to children's health and education. These were the latest findings in the influential Kids Count report by the Annie...
- Expanding Medicaid Will Save The State Money By Eliminating Much Expense On The Uninsured, Think Tank And Op-ed Writer Argue
If Kentucky chooses to expand Medicaid eligibility up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, the state will gain in key areas, argues Jason Bailey, director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, right, in an op-ed piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader....