Research

Health Care and Poverty Facts

Reductions in Medicaid will have an enormous impact on poorer areas of Alabama. In Wilcox Co. 40% of the population were eligible for Medicaid in fiscal 1994; 37% in Perry Co.; 33% in Greene and Dallas counties; 13% in Jefferson Co.; 5% in Shelby Co.
(Birmingham News, April 23, 1995)

Some 800,000 Alabamians (of 4.2 million) had no health insurance in 1989.
(Birmingham News, July 16, 1989)

Between 1980 and 1989 Alabama had the highest rate of rural hospital closings in the nation.
(U.S. Census Bureau Report, May 1989)

In March 1988 the Medicaid eligibility level in Alabama was approximately $1,600 a year, leaving a wide gap between poor children and extremely poor children eligible for Medicaid. A family of four with income of more than $6,400 a year earned too much to qualify, leaving 35,000 uninsured poor children in Alabama.

Of more than 150 rural hospitals in Alabama, 9 closed between 1980 and 1990, the highest hospital closing rate in the U.S.
(Birmingham Post-Herald, May 20,1989)

Northwestern National Insurance Co. ranked Alabama 39th in health of population in 1989 and 42nd in 1990. In 1994 Alabama ranked 45th. In 2005 Alabama ranked 45th in America’s Health Rankings by United Health Foundation, two notches below 2004. 28 other countries ranked ahead of the U.S. that year in life expectancies. Alabama’s low ranking resulted from a high rate of child poverty and poor life style choices (high rates of obesity, smoking, and high school dropouts). The state health officer noted: “Very few public health problems exist in isolation. The educational component is crucial and Alabama people are going to have to take their responsibility for making intelligent health care choices.”
(Birmingham Post-Herald, Sept. 23, 199l; Birmingham News, Oct. 18, 1994; Birmingham News, December 13, 2005)

In 1990, 710,000 Alabamians had no health insurance (up from 16.3% in 1989 to 17.4% in 1990). In 1993, 750,000 had no health insurance.

Nearly 80% of the uninsured in Alabama are not among the poor or elderly, but come from working families who earn less than the poverty rate, according to a study by the U.S. Treasury Dept. In Alabama 18.9% of the population in 1994, or 694,000 people under age 65, were uninsured.
(Birmingham Post-Herald, July 21, 1994)

Only 4 of some 60 private pediatricians in the Birmingham area would see a poor child on Medicaid in 1991. Of the 32% of Alabama children (350,000) who lived in poverty, only about 140,000 were poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. “Kids die . . . of preventable diseases,” Dr. Carden Johnston, director of the emergency department of Children’s Hospital in Birmingham said.
(Birmingham Post-Herald, Sept. 7, 1991)

In 1993, 266,000 Alabama children--one in four age 17 and younger--had no health insurance according to the Southern Institute on Children and Families.
(Birmingham News, Feb. 20, 1993)

A 1987 study by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services showed nearly half of Alabama’s counties had insufficient primary care physicians and 8 rural counties had no physician at all. Eleven others had only one physician per 5,000 people.
(Birmingham News, Aug. 25, 1990)

In 1992, 20% of Alabamians were uninsured compared to a national rate of 14%. Three-fourths of uninsured Alabamians worked for a salary. In 1991 almost 60% of Alabamians lived in rural areas where only 24% of Alabama physicians practiced. Fifteen hospitals had closed between 1987 and 1992.