Other articles by Stephanie Innes:

Town hall pushes health-care changes Soup kitchen doubles as clinic New docs in AZ more likely DOs than MDs Anal cancer isn't being caught early Heart device would free patients Sonoita-based doctor's license restricted for patient errors Sonoita doctor's patient privilege revokedUMC's 'incredible' new ER AIDS medication program cuts list of covered drugs State cuts meds available for HIV/AIDS patients

Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Construction
West-Press
Printing Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President

As unemployment crept up in 2008, the state's health-insurance program for Arizona's poorest residents added more than 70,000 people, including nearly 10,000 in Pima County.

The local jump in enrollees represents a 6 percent increase in people who enrolled in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) in the last year. AHCCCS is the state's form of Medicaid.

Over a five-year period — between 2003 and 2008 — the number of Pima County residents on AHCCCS jumped by 20 percent. During that same time period, the local population increased by about 11 percent.

AHCCCS is for extremely low-income individuals and families in Arizona — in general, for people living at or below the federal poverty level. That would mean an annual income of less than $10,400 for an individual, or less than $21,200 for a family of four.

As of Dec. 1, there were 184,260 Pima County residents enrolled in AHCCCS — 18 percent of the population, or nearly one in five local residents.

"What's different is that I'm seeing a lot of people who until recently were middle class. They'd been working and they were let go because of the economy," said Connie Yrgolla, a patient advocate at El Rio Community Center Northwest.

El Rio, which has 16 sites in Pima County, last year served 75,000 county patients, half of whom were receiving AHCCCS.

One of Yrgolla's tasks is signing people up for AHCCCS and for KidsCare, a state health-insurance program for children. She also helps people who aren't eligible for AHCCCS and have no other insurance to sign up for PCAP — the Pima Community Access Program, which is a local discounted program of health care for low-income adults and children.

Yrgolla said the "new" AHCCCS population of people who enrolled during the latter months of 2008 are mostly married couples with families in their mid-30s to early 50s.

"It's a different demographic," she said. "They are upset about losing their jobs, and a lot of people don't know anything about the services that are out there. They've never had to do this before."

A record 16,249 Arizonans, including 2,043 from Pima County, enrolled in AHCCCS in November. By comparison, during November 2007 the number of Arizonans in the program decreased by 1,613, including a decrease of 640 in Pima County.

Altogether, state AHCCCS enrollment jumped by 7 percent between December of 2007 and December 2008. Statewide, 18 percent of the population is receiving AHCCCS.

"Overall, you could attribute it to the economic downturn," said Monica Coury, assistant director of intergovernmental relations at AHCCCS. "As unemployment increases in Arizona, we're going to see more people who are uninsured. That's just the nature of a program like Medicaid — it is counter-cyclical, meaning the worse off the economy is, the more enrollment will increase."

Coury said the number fluctuates, however, and initial data for December show enrollment numbers dropped slightly. People go on and off AHCCCS as they lose and gain employment. Even a minimum-wage job could remove someone from eligibility, depending on family size.

Twenty-one-year-old Tucson native Jesse Navarrette signed up for AHCCCS on Monday, two months after he was laid off from his job as an equipment technician at Pepsi.

Navarrette lost his health insurance when he was laid off and had hoped to have another job by now. But the market is tough, and he hasn't been able to find one. He signed up for AHCCCS after an abscessed tooth led him to visit El Rio Community Health Center's Downtown-area location..

"Hopefully I'll have a job soon and I won't need the help anymore," he said.

Arizona shed more than 83,000 jobs between November 2007 and November 2008, putting the state jobless rate at 6.3 percent. Researchers at the state Department of Commerce are predicting the unemployment rate will top 7 percent and might even hit 8 percent before the state economy turns around.

Many health-care experts, including the Kaiser Family Foundation, estimate that for every percentage point that unemployment rises, 1.1 million Americans will find themselves without any health insurance, and another million will enroll in Medicaid.