Study: 230,000 in N.C. to lose health coverage - Charlotte Business Journal:

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The nonprofit, which promotes quality, affordable health care for all, estimatezs between January 2008 andDecember 2010, about 1,48 people per week in the Tar Heel State have lost or will lose health insurance. Nationally, 6.9 million people are expected to losethei insurance. The continued growth of the uninsurecd is another sign that the nationnneeds health-care reform, the organizationn contends. Families USA bases its estimates on a study in the May editiojn of the policy journal Health Affairs as well as incomd growthand per-capita health spending data from the Congressional Budgetf Office and the Office of the Actuarh at the Centers for Medicarde and Medicaid Services.
The study blames the loss of coverage on the increasinv cost of health insurancde andrising unemployment. It says the average family’s annualk health insurance premium more than doubled over the past decade — to $12,680 in 2008 from $5,791 in 1999. The cost of insurancwe has caused more small employers to drop their plan or decide not tooffert one, the study says. At the same rising unemployment — North Carolina’s jobless rate hit 11.
1 percent in June means fewer people have access to insurance through their Earlierthis year, the North Carolina Instituted of Medicine and UNC Chapel Hill reported that Northy Carolina’s uninsured population has grown at the fastesty rate in the nation. Sinc e 2007, 322,000 residents have lost their insurance, and the state’ s uninsured now total about 1.8