As early as June '08, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department not only recognized, quantified, and evaluated Greene County health-care deficits, but pulled together a consortium of providers to address some very pressing issues.
The director of the health department estimated at that time that about 37,000 people in Greene County had no health insurance. Another 74,000 were estimated to be underinsured (defined as having to pay more than 10% out of pocket for health care). These numbers accounted for 43.57% of the total population, a figure that can only become more bleak since national health care spending has increased at an annual average rate of 10% since the Sixties. Without some sort of remediation, it seems inevitable that more than half the population of Greene County will become uninsured or underinsured in the foreseeable future.
The problem doesn't stop there. Of that part of the Greene County population that had some degree or form of health insurance, 33% had some type of public insurance. With an aging population and both large and small employers cutting back or eliminating health coverage, it remains to be seen how that number will hold up.
Fast forward to 2009. The number of uninsured people in Greene County is now estimated at 40,000, an 8.1% annual increase. The Kitchen Clinic, a typical safety-net clinic operating at capacity, turned away 230 people in June. Data released in late September by the Census Bureau show 11.3% of children in Missouri's 7th Congressional District to be uninsured. The percentage of uninsured adults (ages 18-64) in the 7th district is 22.8; that's nearly 100,000 people.
Area Health Access
Published: August 14, 2010Signs of the Times
Published: July 15, 2010Driving back to Kansas City from St. Louis on I-70 recently, a newspaper commentator and his wife counted 61 billboards that were blank or had no paid advertising.
Advertisers' growing fascination with online media is part of it. But the economic downturn continues unabated for the outdoor advertising/billboard industry, resulting in their worst profit drop-off in three decades. An industry analyst expects those 14-by-48 foot billboards along a highway near you to have vacancy rates in 30%-land, which translates into a 15% revenue decline this year.
One of the bigger signs--around 100 feet tall--can cost about $200,000 to install; add the cost of insuring it and any substantial down time means balance-sheet red ink. Companies large and small are responding by mothballing their least profitable locations, downsizing staff, and shelving high-tech display upgrades. Louisiana-based Lamar Advertising, third-largest billboard operator nationwide, has closed 1,800 billboards and smaller displays but still reported an $11.8 million second-quarter loss.
Many companies would like to revitalize by moving to the luminous, LCD-style signs, but are being thwarted by cost (twice that of a conventional sign) and opposition from some states and communities that view the flashing and animation as a nuisance and traffic hazard. Banks have been less than enthusiastic about providing financing.
What Advertising Will Say About Us
Published: June 15, 2010"Historians and archaeologists will one day discover that the ads of our time are the richest and most faithful daily reflections any society ever made of its whole range of activities." --Marshall McLuhan
If so, what will the yet-to-be-born scholars make of the American Tourister Gorilla, for instance? Those of a certain age will remember the ad campaign, which ran from 1970 to 1982 and featured a primate severely maltreating luggage. The "gorilla" actually was the world's foremost pseudo-simian actor dressed in a $20,000 suit with moving eyes, lids, brow, mouth, lips, and smile. The brand was so associated in the popular mind with this gorilla that American Tourister became deeply involved in wildlife preservation campaigns long after the ads had ceased to run.
And what of the Energizer Bunny? Will our great-grandchildren see the Bunny as "the ultimate symbol of longevity, perseverance and determination" that its ad creators envisioned? Longevity surely is a possibility--the ad campaign began in 1989 and the "Spokes Hare" continues to show up in every conceivable promotional venue.
Longevity also characterizes Elsie, originally one of four cartoon cows (Mrs. Blossom, Bessie, and Clara were her associates) that began representing Borden dairy products in 1936. In 1939, a live Elsie appeared at the World's Fair in New York; the cow's real-life name was Lobelia. After the World's Fair, Elsie/Lobelia starred as "Buttercup" in the film Little Men, but died in a tragic auto accident in 1941. To date there have been 29 Elsies; they have received the keys to more than two hundred cities. Briefly put out to pasture by Borden in the late Sixties, Elsie's sweet face and daisy necklace soon returned. The current Elsie travels almost a quarter of a million miles a year, meeting more than eleven million people! It is said that nine our of ten people in America recognize her. Perhaps Elsie's legacy will be to symbolize some bucolic, agrarian aspect of our society.
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