Uninsured
in McHenry County
By BRIAN SLUPSKI - bslupski@nwherald.com
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| Terry Zaccard, 52, of Woodstock listens Thursday morning to Julie Szum of the Family Health Partnership Clinic as she takes his blood pressure. Zaccard has been uninsured since 2004 and said he felt that the clinic was the only place he could go to talk to people about his medical problems. (Nick Dentamaro – ndentamaro@nwherald.com) |
WOODSTOCK – In July 2008, Dottie Ballard lost her job.
With a heart condition and diabetes, the 62-year-old Harvard resident faced difficult times. She no longer had health insurance through an employer and couldn’t afford it on her own.
“When I first got sick, they told me that if I could get disability, I could get medical care,” Ballard said. “I didn’t want to be classified as disabled because I wanted to be able to go back to work.”
Ballard has received her medical care through the Family Health Partnership Clinic in Woodstock. The nonprofit clinic provides health care to McHenry County’s uninsured and underinsured residents. Through the clinic, Ballard was able to monitor her ongoing health issues and receive the medicine she needed for her diabetes.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” Ballard said. “I probably would have died from some kind of diabetic-related problem.”
Healthier now, Ballard is in training that she hopes will lead to a full-time job – and health insurance.
Last year, the Family Health Partnership Clinic logged about 7,800 patient visits, treating a fraction of the estimated 40,000 individuals in McHenry County who do not have health insurance or are underinsured. In November, the clinic will expand to McHenry with a new office at 4309 Medical Center Drive.
The clinic is funded primarily through grants and donations – it receives no government funding. Hoban said that clients such as Ballard do pay some of the cost, based on a sliding scale according to their income. The nonprofit clinic has not taken a position on the proposed health care reforms now being debated in Congress.
“As a clinic, we have no policy on this,” said Suzanne Hoban, the clinic’s executive director. “Certainly we would like to see something that covers everyone.”
Hoban said that having millions of people uninsured adds a tremendous cost to the health care system. Every year, hospitals write off tens of millions of dollars in bad debt. The Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council estimated that hospitals in the Chicago area contributed about $1.2 billion in free care in 2007 – much of it administered through emergency rooms.
However, figuring out the cost of health care itself is a complicated matter. Different rates are negotiated between health care systems and insurance companies, and uninsured individuals tend to face higher prices. In such a system, determining a true cost can be difficult.
“If you can get a handle on what the absolute cost is, let me know,” Hoban said. “It is really confusing. All these different providers are at the hospital. A doctor’s bill can be paid, but not the lab technician. It can be overwhelming.”
Hoban said that without insurance, people tend to use emergency rooms for their health care. This is expensive and inefficient, and people without insurance sometimes wait to see a doctor. The result is that a minor health care issue can become a major problem.
“People are choosing not to take care of themselves,” said Mike Deering, director of communications and government relations for Advocate Health Care. “What happens is they wind up in our emergency room sicker and worse off. So then the issue is magnified.”
One of the goals of the Family Health Partnership Clinic is to provide the primary care people without insurance need. The clinic largely is dependent on volunteer nurses and doctors.
“I’m here because there’s a need, it’s as simple as that,” said James Mowery, a board certified doctor of internal medicine who works for the Centegra Health System and is the medical director of the Family Health Partnership Clinic.
“From my own perspective, everyone has the right to affordable health care,” Mowery said, adding that he was not sure the private sector could be organized in such a way to provide it.
He said that although talk of health care reform had brought concerns about socialized medicine, the government already plays a significant role through programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Mowery said people need to consider the broader costs of having millions of people who are uninsured.
“People don’t understand what the emergency room costs do to their own premiums,” Mowery said.
Mowery said that the quality of our health care system is excellent, but it is costly and inefficient.
“A big segment of the population is not aware of the costs because they are getting coverage through an employer,” Mowery said. “Then they lose their job and it’s $1,000 or $1,500 a month.”
Among the patients Mowery sees is Terry Zaccard, 52, of Woodstock. Zaccard is a machine operator who has not had health insurance since about 2004. Zaccard said he has worked for months at a time, but the state of the economy has made finding long-term employment difficult.
“This clinic is very important,” Zaccard said. “You need a place to go to be able to talk to someone about basic health issues. This is the only place I can sit down and openly talk to someone about it.”
