Project Summary

Little research has so far been done into the geographic variation in health insurance coverage for educators across the state of Colorado. Most research currently done has been into general geographic trends across the whole country. Other research has been done into coverage for educators, but these two topics are seldom combined. For Colorado specifically, research into health has not focused on jobs, nor does it focus on variation between regions of the state. Due to this lack of research, it remains difficult to understand disparities between regions for these educators, information that could be valuable for them. Educators are among the most reliant on health insurance coverage from their employers due to their often low pay despite being in demand in expensive areas. Research done has not often considered the impacts of health coverage on jobs, often simply comparing the net amount. It is important to consider factors outside of just coverage, as educators in expensive areas might be able to afford much less medical care out-of-pocket than those in less expensive areas. Research has focused on the effects of different public policies on general coverage in Colorado, and these policies often affect all regions of the state, but there remain challenges in determining if coverage is fair and sufficient for educators across the state. In order for educators to be able to better understand the state of their health coverage, it is imperative that research is done into the differences in health coverage between Colorado school districts for educators.

Medical costs have risen significantly over the past few decades, leading to higher insurance premiums. This has led to people becoming more reliant on employer offered health insurance, especially educators who are often underpaid. It is therefore important for data to be collected on health costs across different school districts. This study examined the health premiums under employer sponsored health insurance in school districts across Colorado. It was hypothesized that districts in the rural Eastern Plains regions, as well as poorer districts, would have less coverage from the district, and in turn higher premiums out of pocket from their employees due to less access to medical care and lower funding. Districts were selected in a stratified random sample for each of the four regions of Colorado, that being the Eastern Plains, Front Range, Central Mountains, and Western Slope. For each district, the annual premiums for general health insurance, vision care, and dental care were collected, and for each, single plans, couple plans, and family plans had data collected. Districts that did not publicly provide their health insurance data were replaced by other randomly selected districts from the same region. It was found that the rural Eastern Plains had lower health premiums than other districts when outliers were not considered. All regions had relatively similar average annual health premiums when the size of the plan increased. It can be concluded that rural districts do not have significantly higher premiums than more urban districts. Future data collection that uses different sets of districts may draw different conclusions.