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Advocate for Arizona's Health
Join the PAFCO Healthcare Reform Project PAFCO in collaboration with St. Luke's Health Initiative, AZ Ecumenical Council and other partners wants to involve citizens and community leaders in creating solutions to the health care crisis through effective public policy civic engagement.
Our Goal: To train individuals to advocate for solutions to address the current health care crisis.
- Get Involved!! download flyer
- PAFCO Health Care Advocacy Project
- Promoting Health Care Reform through citizen action
- Citizen Evaluation Questions
- Host a PAFCO workshop/training within your agency or organization.
- Attend a PAFCO train the trainer workshop to learn how to implement an advocacy program within your agency/organization.
- Become an advocate for quality, affordable healthcare by attending a training already scheduled in your area.
To set up your training, contact: Michele White, michele@pafcoalition.org or 602-373-6989 Almost everyone agrees, the health care system is a broken mess, with thousands uninsured, many more underinsured, growing premiums, high co-payments, lack of rural health care, escalating costs, workforce shortages, facility closures, health care disparities among populations, and bad health care outcomes for many populations. Yet, the system has great strengths which can be creatively developed as long term solutions. The focus of this project is to help citizens, health and human services professionals and community leaders to advocate for solutions at the state and federal level. ----
AZ Uninsured and Uncompensated Care Costs
Arizona's number of insured has steadily increased over the past few years to its current level of over 1 million. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Arizona has the 12th highest rate of uninsured and the highest rate of uninsured children in the nation. The numbers of uninsured adults and children have climbed, despite the implementation of Prop. 204, the Healthy Arizona Initiative and the KidsCare program for children and parents.
Currently, only half of Arizona employers offer healthcare coverage and only 38 percent of those policies cover children. Part of the problem is that the cost of health insurance has more than doubled since 1996. In fact, private market insurance can be unaffordable up to 2.5 times higher than the advertised standard rate or completely unavailable for people with health conditions.1 The slow but steady decline in employer-sponsored insurance among both large and small employers is projected to continue at least through the end of the decade. Even as the percentage of uninsured Arizonans is projected to decrease slightly over the coming years, the number of people without insurance will increase by about 20,000 per year.2
Arizona Population by Primary Insurance Market Segment, 10 (In Thousands)
Hospitals are on the front lines of healthcare. Too often, hospitals care for people with conditions that could have been treated in a doctor's office. Hospitals frequently do not receive payment for care they provide. Arizona's hospitals collectively incurred $249 million in uncompensated care costs in 2005. (Previous years uncompensated care costs were: 2004, $209 million; 2003, $211 million; 2002, $187 million; 2001, $182 million; and 2000, $186 million.) Because these costs must be passed on to other payors, all healthcare consumers bear the financial brunt of uncompensated care in the form of higher insurance premiums. This cost-shifting amounts to a hidden tax on the insured.
A recent Families USA study found that in 2005, premium costs for family health insurance coverage provided by Arizona private employers included an extra $1,293 in premiums due to the cost of care for the uninsured, and premiums for individual coverage cost an extra $477. The study projected that by 2010, the premium costs for family health insurance coverage provided by private employers in Arizona will include an extra $2,028 in premiums due to the cost of care for the uninsured, and premiums for individual coverage will cost an extra $726.3
- St. Luke's Health Initiative: Health Policy and Data. 2006.
- Children's Action Alliance Fact Sheet: Providing Healthcare for Arizona's Children, Telling the Rest of the Story. February 2007.
- Families USA, Paying a Premium: The Added Costs of Care for the Uninsured. June 2005.