Dropouts may cost state $280 million

Report links price of health care to quitting high school

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 9, 2006 at midnight

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Colorado would save $280 million in taxpayer-supported health care costs over the next 45 years if this year's 15,000 high school dropouts had gotten their diplomas, according to a new report.

But heads of Colorado's health- based nonprofits say that while the study hits some points, it misses others.

The average high school dropout costs Colorado $16,000 in extra taxpayer supported health care over the course of his or her lifetime, mostly in extra Medicaid costs, said the report funded by the MetLife Foundation, the charity arm of the health insurer.

The report was put together by the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works to decrease the dropout rate.

The report based its calculations on the decreasing chances that someone would need to be on Medicaid, or would be uninsured, as his or her education level improved.

For example, a high school dropout has a 24 percent chance of being on Medicaid, according to the study, based on Medicaid's 2003 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

A college graduate has just a 1 percent chance of needing Medicaid, the survey found.

High school dropouts have a 28 percent chance of being medically uninsured, versus a 6 percent chance for college graduates.

And because those on Medicaid and those with less education generally tend to be less healthy, the costs are driven up even farther.

But people who think 25 percent of Colorado's adults without a high school education can qualify for Medicaid don't know the state, said Denise de Percin, executive director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

"If you're a single adult, aren't pregnant or severely disabled, you're not going to qualify to get on Medicaid," she said.

Another problem with the report is that it assumes that people with good educations and jobs can guarantee that they and their families get employer-sponsored health care, said de Percin, whose association wants all Coloradans to have access to quality, affordable health care - private or government-based.

"We're having a crisis in employer-based health care," she said. "We're seeing employers struggling at all levels with providing any kind of insurance regardless of the education level of their employees."

On a brighter note, Colorado has a good opportunity next year to put a dent in its number of uninsured, currently at about 750,000, de Percin said.

Voters last year approved a stiffer cigarette tax and decided to let the state spend more of the tax money it collects.

And in January Bill Ritter, who has made a move toward near-universal health care a top priority, will become the state's new governor.

Bob Wise, the former governor of West Virginia who heads the Alliance for Excellent Education, acknowledged that health-care access isn't just a problem on the low end of the economic scale, and that more employers are dropping medical benefits.

Nonetheless, he said, "The only area in our economy where we're seeing a genuine wage increase is among the college-educated - and that higher level seems to be the only guarantee that you have access to health care."

High cost of leaving school

Dropouts and health care*

Dropout College graduate

• Likelihood of needing Medicaid 24 percent 1 percent

• Likelihood of being uninsured in any given year 28 percent 6 percent

Colorado potential savings*

• Medicaid: $15,143

• Taxpayer support for uninsured: $981

• Total per person: $16,124

• Statewide total: $279,682,000*Sources: Metlife Foundation And Alliance For Excellent Education. Colorado Potential Savings * *Average Savings Over Lifetime If A 2007 Dropout S ...

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729

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