One in three small town residents
without health coverage by 2019

Annual cost of health care for average rural household will rise from $2,785 to nearly $4,700

According to a recently released Center for Rural Affairs’ report, approximately one in three rural Americans living in communities with fewer than 2,500 residents will be uninsured by 2019. Throughout the remainder of rural America, approximately one in four residents will likely go without health care coverage and the annual cost of health care for all rural households will rise from $2,705 to nearly $4,700 on average.
“I live in a rural community with fewer than 1,000 people, which means that if I still have health insurance at the end of this decade, statistically speaking, one of my next door neighbors won’t,” said John Crabtree, Media Director of the Center for Rural Affairs. “Rural Americans simply cannot afford Congressional inaction on health care reform.”
The Center for Rural Affairs’ report - Why Health Care Reform Can’t Wait: The Benefits of Health Reform for Rural America, examines both Congressional health care reform proposals and their potential impact on rural families, businesses and communities as well as the rural consequences of inaction and the staggering cost to rural communities if Congress fails to move reform forward.
According to the report, rural Americans are more uninsured (especially in remote rural areas, have higher rates of insurance purchased on the individual market, have lower rates of employer-sponsored insurance and, on average, have lower incomes. Allowing current health insurance and cost-shifting trends to continue - in other words, allowing the status quo to go unchecked by health care reform legislation - will have significant negative consequences for rural people.
For example, under current trends, the number of rural uninsured will increase over the next decade. With a rural uninsured rate currently at 20 percent, estimated increases would result in over one quarter (25%) of rural residents being uninsured by 2019. And the consequences of Congressional inaction could be worse in more remote rural areas - with a current uninsured rate of 23 percent, inaction could result in nearly 32 percent of residents in those rural areas being uninsured by 2019.
A full copy of the report can be viewed and downloaded at: http://www.cfra.org/10/cant-wait. This is the ninth in a series of Center for Rural Affairs’ reports examining crucial health care issues in rural America. Previous reports in this series can be found on the front page of the Center’s website (www.cfra.org).