Daily News

 Anne Krishnan, Staff Writer

Fewer workers are getting health insurance from their employers in North Carolina, but the number of uninsured people in the state is holding steady, as government programs such as Medicaid fill the gap.

Nearly one in six North Carolinians, or 16 percent, had no health insurance coverage in 2005, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nationally, the proportion of uninsured people increased slightly, to 15.9 percent. Seventeen states had a greater amount of uninsured people than North Carolina. Texas had the most people uninsured, at 24.6 percent, while Minnesota had the lowest amount, at 8.7 percent.

"It seems like we’re just treading water," said Adam Searing, director of the N.C. Health Access Coalition, a consumer advocacy group.

But last year’s stable results mask a growing trend that’s shifting health care costs from employers to taxpayers. The percentage of people receiving health insurance from their employers dropped about 1 percentage point to 57.2 percent in 2005, while the amount of people receiving care from Medicaid rose a similar amount, to 13.3 percent.

N.C. Health Choice for Children also took up some of the slack, said Mark Holmes, vice president of the N.C. Institute of Medicine. Medicaid and N.C. Health Choice are funded by state and federal governments for low-income patients. (more…)

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