Wyoming health insurance

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status report:
Wyoming state health insurance exchange

What progress is being made in setting up its federally-mandated Wyoming state health insurance exchange?"

About state health insurance exchanges

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How did Wyoming officials vote on health reform?

H.R.2: Repealing the Health Care Bill

#14

Date of Vote: 1/19/2011 Status: House passed 245-189, 1 not voting

HOUSE|SENATE

1/19/2011--Passed House amended. Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act - Repeals the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, effective as of its enactment. Restores provisions of law amended by such Act. Repeals the health care provisions of the Health Care and Education and Reconciliation Act of 2010, effective as of the Act's enactment. Restores provisions of law amended by the Act's health care provisions. [more]

Yes (1)

• Cynthia Lummis

how healthy is living in Wyoming?

Wyoming has remained consistently at its ranking as the 19th healthiest state to live in for the past couple of years, according to the 2010 America's Health Rankings® by the United Health Foundation.

The good news:

• Wyoming's strengths this year include low air pollution levels and few cases of infectious disease, as well as a low violent crime rate, with 228 offenses of violent crime per 100,000 individuals in the population.
• The state was also praised for its low rate of children in poverty, which has decreased in the past ten years from 14.8 percent of people under the age of 18 to only 10.5 in 2010.
• The rate of deaths in Wyoming due to cardiovascular disease has also decreased in the past five years, from 285.3 to 258.1 deaths per 100,000 members of the population.

The bad news:

• Wyoming shows a high rate of both occupational fatalities (11.2 deaths per 100,000 workers) and premature deaths (8,412 potential years of life lost – before age 75 – for every 100,000 members of the population).
• The state also has a limited supply of primary care physicians, at 92.7 physicians for each 100,000 of the population.
• The uninsured portion of the population grew last year from 13.6 percent of the overall population to 14.7 percent.
• Wyoming's rate of obesity has been increasing over the past 20 years, from 13.7 percent of the population in 1990 to 25.3 percent in 2010.

Wyoming's best and worst category rankings:

• Air pollution (5.2 micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter) – 1st
• Children in poverty – 2nd
• Infectious disease (3.5 cases per 100,000 pop.) – 3rd
• Premature death – 40th
• Primary care physicians – 43rd
• Occupational fatalities – 50th

more details

• See the United Health Foundation's latest findings on Wyoming.
• Trust for America's Health ia another source for key Wyoming health quality findings. In addition, 2010's federal health reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), included the creation of a prevention fund to provide more than $16 billion over the next 10 years to invest in effective, proven prevention efforts, like childhood obesity prevention and tobacco cessation, and the site has a report on how it impacts Wyoming here.

get local health results

State snapshot too large? Get county-by-county health rankings for Wyoming, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin.

does Wyoming have a health insurance high risk pool?

Wyoming Health Insurance Pool (scroll down)
(307) 634-1393

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Starting in 2010, Wyoming started offering health care insurance coverage to residents through the federally established temporary high-risk pool program. To find out more about Wyoming's participation, click here.

Risk pools are state-sponsored programs to help people with a history of medical problems in their family to purchase coverage. These pools are for people who can afford to buy health insurance, but are not able to get underwritten in the private market because of a pre-existing health condition. These programs can vary significantly from state to state in price, benefits and number of people served. Often insurance companies doing business in the state are required to contribute to the pool to keep it in the black. In the best cases, they allow people to be able to switch jobs or become self-employed without the fear of losing their health insurance coverage. Read more about risk pools here.

how to find health insurance in Wyoming

Cover The Uninsured is a national effort to highlight the fact that too many Americans are living without health insurance and to demand solutions from our nation's leaders. Read more information on its efforts. It is a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

• Cover The Uninsured's facts on the uninsured in Wyoming and all other states.
• The Foundation for Health Coverage Education's guide on how to find health insurance in Wyoming.
• Materiales En Español – Guías para encontrar cobertura de seguro de salud.

Georgetown's Wyoming health insurance guide

Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute has researched and written state-by-state guides for finding and keeping health insurance. It updates these guides as federal and state policies change. A number of non-profit organizations help fund its research. Learn more about the Health Policy Institute.

Review Georgetown's guide for Wyoming.

Health insurance plan report cards for Wyoming

The National Committee for Quality Assurance is a private, non-profit organization that, among other things, provides health care plan report cards for consumers.

Go here to search for Wyoming health insurance plan report cards.

Wyoming government health insurance resources

Wyoming Department of Health (WVCHIP) – the primary state agency for providing health and human services, it administers programs maintaining the health and safety of citizens of Wyoming. Its primary approach in solving health problems is prevention.

Wyoming Children's Health Insurance Program – designed to ensure that children and teens of both working and non-working families can have the health insurance they need.