Twenty percent of Kansas Hispanics lack health insurance — three times rate of white residents

Kaci Cink, an analyst with the nonpartisan Kansas Health Institute, discusses findings of the latest KHI report on health insurance rates among Kansas residents. The uninsured rates have fallen in Kansas, but the disparity between Hispanic and white residents in Kansas remained large. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Complex cultural, language, economic and legal issues left 20% of Hispanic Kansans without health insurance — more than three times the rate of white residents of the state — despite gradual decline across the population in the percentage of uninsured.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit Kansas Health Institute’s annual review of health insurance coverage among Kansans, relying on the most recent data, showed 20.1% of Hispanics lacked private or public coverage in 2022. That was above the 12.7% rate of uninsured among Black people in Kansas, as well as the 6.2% for White people in the state. Three in 10 Hispanics were without health insurance in Kansas, but 52% of the 248,000 uninsured Kansans were white.

“Hispanics are more likely to be uninsured,” said Kaci Cink, an analyst with Kansas Health Institute. “The disparities are a little bit smaller than they used to be, but they definitely still remain.”

The overall portion of medically uninsured in Kansas during 2022 stood at 8.6%, which ranked 13th highest in the United States and was greater than the 6.3% average among states that expanded eligibility for Medicaid. The collective uninsured rate for the United States was 8%.

Since introduction of the Affordable Care Act in 2014, the level of people in the United States without health insurance has declined. One decade ago, uninsured percentages by race and ethnic group in Kansas were: Hispanic, 25.9%; Black, 15.7%; multiple races, 10.6%; and white, 7.9%.

During a forum Thursday sponsored by Kansas Health Institute, factors contributing to coverage gaps, especially regarding the Hispanic community in Kansas, was considered by a four-person panel.

Ton Miras Neira, community health worker project manager at University of Kansas Medical Center, said immigrants from universal health care countries like Spain, such as himself, were initially baffled by U.S. health insurance terminology. He said the language barrier for non-English speakers elevated the challenge. The process of establishing and maintaining a legal presence in the United States fueled anxiety, he said.

“Clients that are full citizens, they are like, ‘Oh, I’m not getting insurance because I might be deported,’ ” Neira said. “Many of the Latinos that I’m working with, even when they go to the hospital or they enroll in insurance, they improvise a name that is not theirs, just in case.”

Geovannie Gone, executive director of the Immunize Kansas Coalition, said Kansans should realize 50% to 67% of residents in four southwest Kansas counties were majority Hispanic or Latino. Many held moderate-wage jobs in the region’s feedlots, dairies and meatpacking plants, she said.

“It’s not that they don’t want insurance,” Gone said. “Families cannot afford the high insurance premiums offered by the employers. The kids might qualify for KanCare (Medicaid), you know, but what happens to the mom? I will almost bet you she’s going to go uninsured.”

Culture has an influence on the uninsured rate in Kansas and other states, Gone said, because Hispanic immigrants retained traditions of caring for themselves before turning to a health professional. There is heavy reliance on herbal medicines, she said.

Still, she said, it would be a mistake to define Latinos with broad brush strokes.

“When we talk about Latinos, we usually tend to generalize and say ‘all Latinos.’ But that is not a correct assumption,” Gone said. “Not all Latinos are the same. We have Latinos from Guatemala. We have Latinos from Brazil. We have Latinos from Nicaragua, from El Salvador, from Honduras. All of them view health care a little bit differently.”

She said health care workers ought to look for opportunities to reeducate members of Latino and Hispanic communities in culturally sensitive ways.

If not, she said, the system would continue to fail people who had yet to grasped the value of acquiring insurance for health care expenses.

Christina Pacheco, assistant professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Kansas Medical Center, said newcomers to the United States tended to be more healthy than the average U.S. resident. That could be a factor in decisions not to secure insurance, she said.

“Folks are doing that cost-benefit analysis for themselves,” Pacheco said. “And, they may also not intend to stay in the United States indefinitely and see insurance as an unnecessary long-term commitment.”

Justin Gust, vice president of community engagement with El Centro, said the application process of enrolling in ACA marketplace health plans could be daunting to people with literacy challenges and lacking English language skills. He said a person’s immigration status, whether in the country illegally or fearful of being deported for other reasons, was a powerful incentive to avoid participation in the health insurance system.

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