1 IN 5 A.V. RESIDENTS UNINSURED STUDY: WORKING PEOPLE MOST LIKELY TO BE WITHOUT HEALTH PROTECTION.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Nearly one in five Lancaster and Palmdale residents has no health insurance, a new study has found.

Adults of working age are most likely to be living without insurance, with almost 90 percent of local children covered by private or government programs, according to the study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

``Most of the ones who are not covered are adults who do not have insurance through their workplace, and in some cases, the disabled,'' said Diane Grooms, regional vice president for United Way in the Antelope Valley. ``Mostly likely they would be people who do not meet income requirements for Medi-Cal. We typically call them the working poor. They make a little bit too much money to qualify for Medi-Cal. That leaves them in an awkward spot because their employer does not insure them or if they are working more than one part-time job, they typically do not have insurance because their jobs don't offer it.''

The UCLA study found that residents of Palmdale, Lancaster and other communities in the valley are actually more likely to be covered by health insurance than the average Los Angeles County resident.

Eighty-one percent of residents in both Lancaster and Palmdale have some form of health insurance, compared to county average of 76 percent, the study found.

Quartz Hill's insurance rate was 86 percent, while it was 78 percent in Lake Los Angeles. Figures were not released for other Antelope Valley communities.

The UCLA study found that children were more likely to have health insurance than were adults below retirement age, both in the Antelope Valley and elsewhere.

Among children, about 89 percent are covered by insurance, both in Lancaster and Palmdale.

Among people ages 19 to 64 in Lancaster, 24 percent were uninsured; in Palmdale, 25 percent, the study said. In Quartz Hill, 18 percent of adults were uninsured.

``The adults is where you see the highest rates. There are more program services to insure (children). They are the only group where the uninsurance rate is going down,'' UCLA Center for Health Policy Research spokesman Garrison Frost said.

Los Angeles County's highest concentrations of uninsured were found in and around downtown Los Angeles, south Los Angeles, and east Los Angeles. The uninsured amounted to as much as 41 percent of residents younger than 65.

``These are overwhelmingly working families. At least three-quarters of the uninsured are workers or in a family headed by workers,'' center director E. Richard Brown said.

``There's also a substantial segment, but a minority, who work for an employer that offers coverage but where the employer's rules bar that employee from being eligible. There's a smaller still proportion who work for an employer that offers coverage, and the worker is eligible, but the cost of the required share of the premium makes it seem unaffordable,'' Brown said.

Center officials said many uninsured are eligible for government-sponsored health insurance, but they are not enrolled for a variety of reasons, including ignorance that they qualify for programs such as Medi-Cal and Healthy Families.

Approximately 220,000 county residents qualify for government-sponsored health insurance but are not insured, center officials said.

``I think this is clearly a growing problem. All the evidence is, it's going to get worse, not better, if left to the whims of the marketplace, and that government really needs to step in and take stronger action to help control both the growth of health care costs and also to help provide health care coverage for the 6.7 million Californians who have no access to health insurance,'' Brown said.

More than two-thirds of the uninsured are in low-income families, but about a fourth are in the upper-half of income distribution in the state, Brown said.

``When you look at the costs of family coverage and what in many workplaces the employer requires employees to pay, it is understandable why so many employers don't offer coverage and why so many middle-class working families feel it's simply beyond their financial means,'' Brown said.

``It's over $10,000 a year for family coverage on average through employer plans in California today. The average worker is required to pay about a fourth of that and in many cases, required to pay considerably more,'' Brown said.

The uninsured rate in California is 21 percent, and the national average is 18 percent, Brown said.

Center researchers used data from the 2003 California Health Interview Survey, where respondents indicated that they were uninsured for all or part of the previous 12 months.

The highest concentration of uninsured was Los Angeles City Council District 1, an area north of downtown Los Angeles that encompasses the Pico Union region, where 41 percent of residents were uninsured, the study said.

Among adults in that area, the rate jumped to 52 percent, the study found.

Los Angeles City Council District 9, which covers the downtown civic center area and part of south Los Angeles, had an uninsured rate of 39 percent, followed by the South Los Angeles areas of Lennox and Florence-Graham, both at 38 percent, the study said.

Areas with the lowest uninsured rates included Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills Estates, and La Canada Flintridge, at about 6 percent, Frost said.

Areas with a 7 percent uninsured rate were Malibu, Westlake Village, San Marino, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, and Manhattan Beach, Frost said.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

[phone]