An upsurge in the number of uninsured patients in Detroit and its suburbs in the past four years has only added to the strains increasingly confronting local hospitals, clinics and patients. The percentage of people lacking health insurance in the city of Detroit jumped from 15 percent in 1996 to 20 percent of the population in 1998, the last year for which data is available.
Experts expect newer figures to show the same pace.
In Michigan, the percentage of the population that is uninsured has grown more slowly from 8 percent to 13 percent over the same two years, said Lucille Smith, executive director of the Voices of Detroit Initiative, an organization created to help uninsured patients. More than Medicaid and Medicare patients, the uninsured turn to emergency room care because they lack ways to defray the cost of more routine doctor visits. Since federal law mandates that hospitals cannot turn away patients who show up for treatment in emergency rooms, the uninsured come in for help with serious ailments and routine maladies alike. Detroit's hospitals in particular, according to Adam Jablonowksi, executive director of the Wayne County Medical Society, wind up absorbing the costs. For every patient that legitimately needs to be in a Detroit emergency room for a crisis, there is now an average of 18 patients who need some sort of basic, outpatient care, said Don Potter of the Southeast Michigan Health and Hospital Council.