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Coverage healthier in Manteca
Higher percentage insured than in California
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Manteca-Lathrop-Ripon has the highest percentage of population in San Joaquin County with health insurance coverage.

And San Joaquin County overall has a higher percentage of residents with health insurance than in California as a whole despite unemployment in San Joaquin County being higher than it is statewide at 17 percent versus 12 percent.

Those two tidbits were gleaned from an analysis of health care in San Joaquin County conducted by the Eberhardt School of Business Forecasting Center in conjunction with the San Joaquin County Council of Governments.

Among the major points of the study:

•The private health care industry accounted for more than 8.7 percent of San Joaquin County’s real economic output in 2008, up from 6.4 percent in 2001.

•Health care is the fastest growing private industry in San Joaquin County and will soon surpass manufacturing to emerge as the second largest industry behind agriculture.

•San Joaquin County has a shortage of acute care hospital beds with 1.5 per 1,000 residents compared to 1.9 per 1,000 residents statewide, and 2.7 per 1,000 throughout the United States. The statistics are from 2008.
•There are less primary care physicians per 100,000 residents in San Joaquin County than comparable Central Valley counties and the nation. The numbers per 100,000 residents from 2005 shows San Joaquin County with 66.6 primary care physicians, Stanislaus County with 69.8, Fresno with 77.9, Sacramento with 90.9, and the United States with 95.3

•San Joaquin County in 2005 did better with dentists per 100,000 residents. The figure was at 39.8 for San Joaquin County, 39 for Stanislaus County, 39.4 for Fresno County, 53 for Sacramento County, and 53.7 for the United States.

•Health care jobs account for 8.99 percent of the workforce in San Joaquin County but have a payroll that is equal to 11.75 of the overall total with weekly pay that is at 130.4 percent of average.

•The typical weekly pay of a hospital worker in San Joaquin County is $1,303, a worker in ambulatory heath care services averages $986, and nursing and residential care facilities employees average $508.

In the 18 to 64 age group 18 percent of Manteca-Tracy which includes Lathrop and Ripon are uninsured as compared to 25 percent for Lodi/Escalon, 20 parent for North Stockton, and 34 percent for South Stockton. The overall county percentage is 23.1 percent, California 23.4 percent, and the United States 20 percent.

Tracy-Manteca also stacks up fairly well in other age groups. Just 5 percent of the under 18 population in Tracy-Manteca is uninsured compared to 8 percent in Lodi-Escalon, 9.4 percent in South Stockton, and 9.6 percent in North Stockton. Countywide, the rate is 8 percent compared to 11 percent for California, and 10 percent for the nation.

For those 65 and older, Tracy-Manteca comes in at 2.2 percent uninsured, Lodi-Escalon at 1 percent, North Stockton at 2 percent and South Stockton at 4 percent. Countywide, the figure is 1.9 percent compared to 2.2 percent for California and 1 percent nationally.