Health Insurance 

Midlife crisis: The new uninsured

Partner: 
Ventura County Star
Summary: 

The nation’s 75 million baby boomers, it turns out, are not immune from the crisis in health care. Economic problems are hitting many Ventura County middle-class baby boomers with loss of jobs and health insurance, and the safety net they paid into during better times was not designed to help them. Uninsured patients ages 45-64 nearly doubled at county hospitals and clinics between 2005 and 2009.

Impact Summary: 

The nation’s 75 million baby boomers, it turns out, are not immune from the crisis in health care. Economic problems are hitting many Ventura County middle-class baby boomers with loss of jobs and health insurance, and the safety net they paid into during better times was not designed to help them. Uninsured patients ages 45-64 nearly doubled at county hospitals and clinics between 2005 and 2009.

Results
Uninsured boomers struggling to stay afloat
John Gonzales and Tom Kisken | April 30, 2010
The roll call of Myra Kohanyi pierced the clamor of another exhausting night at the Westminster Free Clinic, as she plowed through a list of 150 people awaiting treatment at what has become a triage center for Ventura County’s uninsured. Those who answered the 5-foot-tall clinic coordinator with a much larger voice were familiar profiles in the healthcare debate: immigrants who have few other options, 20-somethings yet to find a job with insurance, and the poorest of the county’s poor. Then Kohanyi called: “Tony Griffith! ... Tony Griffith!”
Read More
Results
About the Midlife Crisis project
VC Star Staff | April 30, 2010
The Ventura County Star and the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting teamed up for this three-day series on the alarming increase of uninsured baby boomers scrambling for healthcare. The center is an independent journalistic venture devoted to reporting about healthcare issues that concern Californians. It is headquartered at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and funded by the nonprofit, nonpartisan California HealthCare Foundation.
Read More
Results
Ramesh's Story: To uninsured engineer, India is hope
Tom Kisken | April 30, 2010
Cornered by 13 months without a job and healthcare costs that could exceed $1,000 just in July, Ramesh Ramakrishna may have found his escape path. Ramesh RamakrishnaIt’s in India.
Read More
Results
Danny's story: Boomer mired in debt, health problems
John Gonzales, CHCF Center for Health Reporting | April 30, 2010
Danny Chafee has reached the minimum age for a baby boomer, but the milestone comes after 11 years of physical and financial regression. The 46-year-old Newbury Park resident was not a victim of the current economy like the men and women who have flocked to free clinics and government assistance programs throughout Ventura County. But his 1999 fall from a Malibu Canyon telephone poll while erecting a communications system has been no less excruciating. A failed workman’s compensation claim and lawsuit later, he now owes $500,000 to area hospitals for reconstructive surgery on his right eye, shoulders, knees and back. He was a contract employee without health benefits or accident coverage when he dropped nearly 45 feet to the ground.
Read More
Results
Mike's Story: Uninsured father worries his family's future is at risk
Tom Kisken | April 30, 2010
His stomach churns. His chest tightens. When Mike Hill watches his 17-year-old daughter step into the batter’s box during softball practice, he holds his breath. The construction supervisor does it often because of what could happen to his three daughters and to his family’s financial security. He’s uninsured. Hannah, his eldest, could hit the ground wrong as she slides into second base. McKenna, his 14-year-old, could dive on the floor for a basketball at St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura. Haven, 11, could hurt herself at soccer.
Read More
Results
Ventura County's Safety Net
VC Star Staff | April 30, 2010
Public hospitals and clinics: There are two county-run hospitals, Ventura County Medical Center and Santa Paula Hospital, and a network of 32 general care and specialty clinics. Staff members work to find government coverage for the uninsured. If no coverage is available, patients are billed at a discounted rate based on income. Go to http://www.vchca.org. Phone: 677-5223.
Read More
Results
Healthcare outlook more bleak for baby boomer women
John Gonzales and Tom Kisken | May 1, 2010
With her thyroid medication and glaucoma drops rapidly becoming luxuries she cannot afford, Janelle Endy strode as confidently as she could through a temp agency door. Desperate for the health insurance that has eluded her since a 2008 layoff, and preparing for her most promising job opportunity since, she had dyed her gray hair to strawberry blond and buttoned down a power suit purchased for her by a local job club. “I have all of these beautiful clothes,” said the 59-year-old former administrative assistant from Simi Valley who had been in the work force for 40 years. “And right now due to the stress and uncertainty I’ve gained a bit of weight and some don’t fit.”
Read More
Results
Carol's Story: Long, breathless wait for an inhaler
Tom Kisken | May 1, 2010
Carol Cadoo walked out of the Simi Valley Free Clinic empty-handed late on a Monday afternoon, leaned against her Dodge Stratus and cried. The 54-year-old catering sales director came to the clinic for an inhaler. She was told that to get the medicine, she needs a prescription. To get a prescription, she needs to see a doctor. To see a doctor, she has to wait several days, maybe more. It’s time she doesn’t have.
Read More
Results
Nancy and Philip's Story: Insurance is peace of mind, and money wasted
Tom Kisken | May 1, 2010
Staring at the same computer in a crowded career center, looking for but not finding job leads, Nancy Van Dyk and Philip Lowerre debated Mars and Venus. Both are uninsured. It’s a huge deal for her. She’s 54 and hasn’t had a Pap smear or mammogram in two years. Her mother died of breast cancer. “What if I get cancer?” she asked. “Without insurance I’m just going to die.”
Read More
Results
Nora's Story: Blind, uninsured and 6 years to Medicare
Tom Kisken | May 1, 2010
Nora Chao walked along Alamo Road in Simi Valley as if it were booby-trapped, tapping her way with a cane, linking arms with her husband, leaning against him. Every day, they take this walk past the geese loitering at Simi Hills Golf Course. Every day, Chao worries about holes, boulders, branches or anything else that could expose her vulnerability.
Read More
Results
County programs offer lifeline to uninsured boomers
Tom Kisken | May 2, 2010
Richard Corney was driving on a four-lane freeway in Austin, Texas, when his blood sugar went volcanic, temporarily blinding him. Cars and trucks blended into a fog of gray, forcing him to pull over. A month later, asthma squeezed his lungs like a tourniquet, causing him to collapse in the dusty, hot warehouse where he was a supervisor. Corney, who now rents a room in north Oxnard, spent 10 days in an Austin hospital’s intensive care unit. To many people, preventive treatment, nutritional counseling and concepts like a medical home may sound like perks — nice if you can get them. But Corney is 51, unemployed, uninsured and a diabetic.
Read More
Results
Jack's Story: Suffering stroke, he traveled across county for cheaper care
Tom Kisken | May 2, 2010
Jack Rowe couldn’t speak a sentence, couldn’t walk without help, could only rub the sides of his head and stare blindly at his cell phone. He was suffering a stroke. His mind, mobility, possibly his life, depended on getting care. Now. Simi Valley Hospital was 4.3 miles away. The 57-year-old former rodeo cowboy who barely makes rent could get help at the emergency room. Because he is uninsured, that care could bring a bill of $15,000, probably more.
Read More
Results
Doctors pull extra shifts at crowded free clinics
John Gonzales, CHCF Center for Health Reporting | May 2, 2010
After pulling a 12-hour hospital shift the night before, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw was one of three physicians able to show up on time for a weekly 6:30 p.m. opening of the Westminster Free Clinic. With 50 patients waiting on what was considered a slow night, the clinic provided a folding massage table for exams, a Craftsman tool cabinet for medical instruments and regulatory necessities like malpractice insurance. Armed with the shoestring wares, Shaw, 29, used fluent Spanish to treat and advise a woman with an ovarian cyst. She switched to reassuring English to order tests for Scott Daehlin, 51, who lost his Calabasas home to foreclosure last month and has worried about chest pains since.
Read More
Results
Impact of "Midlife Crisis"
Staff | October 26, 2010
“Midlife Crisis: The New Uninsured,” published April 30-May 2 in the Ventura County Star.  This multi-story project focused on a surge in Ventura County baby boomers losing high-paying jobs in the recession, along with the health insurance plans that came with those jobs. The project was pioneering in identifying this baby boomer care crisis, which will have profound impact on the health care system for decades. It identified holes in a safety net that was not designed to accommodate middle class boomers.
Read More