17.4% in S.C. lacking insurance

When it comes to health insurance in America's cities, you don't have to look far for contrasts.

Mount Pleasant had the lowest percentage of people lacking health insurance in 2008 among relatively large cities in the Southeast. Its 6.2 percent ranked 22nd among all U.S. cities.

Across the Cooper River, that picture is much bleaker. North Charleston ranked 481st in the nation with 25.1 percent of its 84,902 residents without health insurance. Among adults ages 18 to 64 living in the city, 30.5 percent are uninsured.

The figures come from the U.S.

Census Bureau, which obtained data from the nation's 532 cities with populations of at least 65,000.

Statewide, the numbers trended more toward North Charleston's than Mount Pleasant's. Charleston ranked 206th with a 14.1 percent uninsured rate, Columbia 292th with 16.6 percent and Rock Hill 352nd with 18.6 percent.

On the surface, the census numbers are no surprise, said Dr. Casey Fitts, founder of Tri-County Project Care. Rates of uninsured are higher where a higher percentage of poor live.

But, he said, there's another story under the surface.

"There are people who work and can't afford health insurance," Fitts said. "And for us who pay taxes and have health insurance, an estimated $2,000 is cost-shifted to us every year."

Fitts' Project Care is a nonprofit relief agency that recently opened its membership to qualified uninsured workers and small businesses with three or more employees.

Fitts said that, with the political will, South Carolina can put itself in position to be a leader in providing health care reform. As an example, he pointed to support of a cigarette tax, as proposed by House Speaker Bobby Harrell, that would provide subsidies to community care clinics.

In the state's favor, the census numbers didn't cast South Carolina as the worst in the nation, as some other quality-of-life surveys do. Among the 25 cities with the highest rates of uninsured, none was in South Carolina.

Texas, with a statewide average of 24.1 percent, was at the bottom of the heap, with 11 cities in the bottom 25.

South Carolina had a 17.4 percent rate statewide.

On the opposite end, Massachusetts had only 4.1 percent lacking health coverage and had nine cities in the top 25, many near Boston.

The only other Southeastern city besides Mount Pleasant in the top 25 was Cary, N.C., which ranked 24th and had an uninsured rate of 6.4 percent.

The statistics were part of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, which provides a statistical portrait of the characteristics of the nation's population in 2008. Health insurance coverage was one of three new topics added to the survey for 2008.

Every question on the ACS is included either because the data is required to satisfy one or more federal laws, regulations or court decisions, or is needed to manage federal programs and allocate more than $400 billion of federal tax dollars annually to states and local communities.

The ongoing survey of about 3 million addresses every year provides one of the most complete pictures of our population available. It covers more than 40 topics such as income, educational attainment, housing, family structure and more.

Reach David Quick at 937-5516 or dquick@postandcourier.com.