A Muskegon County effort to increase health care coverage for the uninsured was highlighted in a March 16 article in USA Today.
The article focused on community-based efforts to boost coverage at a time most attention is focused on Washington, where an historic vote on trillion-dollar federal legislation is expected this weekend. The USA Today article cited Muskegon as an example of a "three-share" approach in which a worker's monthly insurance premium is split equally between the employer, the employee and the community.
Muskegon County's version of the three-share, called Access Health, started in 1999 and now has 1,100 participants in the community of 175,000 people. It grew out of a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and receives it community contributions from Mercy Health Partners. Despite early successes, however, enrollment has reportedly stayed flat during the past two years as both the number of uninsured, and unemployed, have spiked.
The stakes are becoming increasingly high: Despite a highly rated health care delivery system, Muskegon ranked 80th out of 82 Michigan counties in unhealthy behaviors such as tobacco and alcohol use as well as poor diet and lack of exercise. That analysis was recently released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute. Moreover, the Muskegon County Health Project estimates that 23.5% of county residents aged 18 to 64 lack health insurance -- about 25,000 people.
Undaunted, county officials appear intent on continuing their efforts to grow the program.
"This is no silver bullet, but the impact we have on people's lives cannot be overstated," Jeff Fortenbacher, executive director of Access Health, is quoted as telling USA Today.
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