A recording of this webcast is now available.
Speakers’ PowerPoints:
• Al Cross
• Alan Morgan
• Jim Doyle
In the launch of health insurance exchanges across the country, one issue that has not been explored much is how the marketplaces will affect rural Americans. AHCJ will sponsor a webcast on this topic on Thursday, Oct. 17, at 2 p.m. Eastern.
About rural Americans and insurance
Nearly one in five uninsured Americans live in rural areas, and a greater proportion of rural residents lacks health insurance compared with the proportion of urban residents without health care coverage. One of the goals of the Affordable Care Act is to help make health insurance coverage affordable and accessible for the approximately 60 million Americans who live in rural areas. The federal Department of Health and Human Services has said the health insurance marketplaces will help to lower costs by increasing competition, especially in the 29 mostly rural states where a single insurer currently dominates more than half of the health insurance market.
Whether the ACA does in fact lower costs by increasing competition remains to be seen, but lower costs is a significant goal given that studies show that one in five U.S. farmers faces medical debt and, on average, families pay about half of their health care costs out-of-pocket, HHS said.
Speakers
The panelists will be Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky; Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association; and Jim Doyle, who covers the business of health care for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. AHCJ health insurance topic leader Joseph Burns will serve as moderator.
Resources
Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE)
Al Cross
Alan Morgan
Jim Doyle
Joseph Burns