More than 700,000 South Carolinians, including 165,000 children, have no health care insurance. South Carolina’s health status ranks among the nation’s lowest with a high incidence of stroke, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and infant mortality. The lack of adequate health insurance, a major barrier to primary and preventive care, is cited as a key factor in these poor health rankings.

Last year, the SC General Assembly began to address this unfortunate trend by expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to children living in families earning up to 200 percent of poverty. This year, the General Assembly maintained the $21.2 million appropriation needed to fund the expansion.

SCHA supports a further expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover children living at or below 250 percent of poverty.

Working as part of the Covering Carolina Collaborative, SCHA also supports a plan to subsidize health coverage for uninsured South Carolinians. In 2008, The Covering Carolina Collaborative strongly supported a bill that would have increased the state cigarette tax and used the additional revenue to provide help to the uninsured. The bill passed the legislature, but was vetoed by the Governor and the House of Representatives failed to override the veto.

SCHA will continue to work with legislators and other organizations and individuals to advocate both an increased cigarette tax to discourage smoking among young people and a plan to cover the uninsured in our state. Both are serious public health issues that must be addressed if we are to improve South Carolina’s poor health rankings.

For more information on the uninsured and the Covering Carolina Collaborative, go to http://www.coveringcarolina.com.