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FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2004

NATIONAL REPORT EXAMINES WEST VIRGINIA’S

STATE-PROVIDED HEALTH CARE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2004) – An assessment of health care in the 50 states, released here today, finds that West Virginia is making a significant effort to focus its efforts in dealing with uninsured children and adults. The state put together an umbrella group of all its high-level health officials to move toward a coordinated approach to this national problem.

“Health officials in West Virginia told us that this is the first time that people in charge of variety of programs are seriously talking to each other,” says Katherine Barrett, co-author of the report.

West Virginia ranks 34^th in the percentage of insured non-elderly adults and 22^nd for children. “That’s really pretty good,” said Barrett, “given that the state is in the bottom ten in terms of percentage of the population covered by private employers. In fact, Medicaid covers over half of all the births in West Virginia.” The state is significantly aided by the contribution of the federal government to its Medicaid program. The federal government contributes 75 percent of every dollar of Medicaid spending in West Virginia, more than in any state but Mississippi.

In addition, West Virginia has made efforts to move toward a better balance of institutional and home-based spending for long-term care. Unfortunately, the state had to freeze participation in its waiver for home and community based services last year due to budget problems.

Governing’s analysis of state-funded health care is part of the Government Performance Project, a six-year-old effort, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to evaluate a wide range of state government management and policy functions. This year’s special report focuses on six critical health care problems facing states: long-term care, public health, mental health, prescription drugs, access to care for the uninsured, and care for children.

The Government Performance Project found and documented the inability of the 50 states’ healthcare system to deliver improvements in medicine fairly and consistently to many of their citizens. Health care in most states is not just inadequate, the study concluded--it’s deteriorating. “After exhaustive analysis and hundreds of interviews,” says Peter Harkness, Governing’s publisher and editor, “it became clear that there is a health care crisis in America. But it is in no way a medical crisis. It is a fiscal crisis.”

Governing is a policy and management magazine aimed at high-level state and local government officials. An online version of this report will be available at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm as of January 29. Press releases for each of the 50 states can be found at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/press.htm.

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