Data from the U.S. Census Bureau—the most widely used source of statistics on the uninsured—show a decrease in the uninsured rate to 45.7 million people in 2007 – 15.3 percent of the population – from 47 million people in 2006. This decrease can largely be attributed to an increase in the number of individuals covered by government health programs. The number of individuals enrolled in these programs increased from 27 percent in 2006 to 27.8 percent in 2007. Though employer-sponsored insurance has remained remarkably steady considering the dramatic increases in the cost of providing insurance, the number of people covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2006, 59.7 percent, decreased to 59.3 percent in 2007. This continues a trend of decreasing employer sponsored coverage since 2000. There is wide variation in rates of uninsurance across the states, ranging from 24.4 percent in Texas to 8.3 percent in Massachusetts and Hawaii.[1]
Children
The number of children under 18 years of age without health insurance decreased from 8.7 million children in 2006 to 8.1 million in 2007.[2]
While uninsurance decreased for children overall, children in poverty remain vulnerable.
Nearly two thirds (62 percent) of uninsured children come from families making below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Minority children also face much higher rates of uninsurance, with Hispanics faring the worst with 20 percent of Hispanic children uninsured.
[3]
Young Adults
Young adults continue to make up the largest percentage of the uninsured. Young adults aged 12-24 and 25-34 have uinsurance rates at 28.1 percent and 25.7 percent, respectively. Young adults often go uninsured because they are no longer on their family’s plan, they have not yet entered the workforce and gained access to employer sponsored insurance, or because they became ineligible for Medicaid when they turned 18.
[4]
Non-Elderly Adults
Nearly one third of all adults (32.3 percent) were uninsured in 2007.[5] With health care costs increasing and a trend of decreasing employer sponsored insurance over past years, the onus for coverage expansions has increasingly fallen on public programs. Although Medicaid has enrolled more adults over previous years, the eligibility limits for adults in Medicaid are generally much lower than for children.
A majority of the uninsured are members of families with a family head who works during the year (83 percent).
Only 17.4 percent of the uninsured are members of the families where the family head did not work at any point during the year. The rates at which these workers are offered insurance vary significantly by firm size, industry type, and the average wage of the employee. People with low incomes are disproportionately represented among the uninsured. Nearly a third (32.5 percent) of the uninsured in 2007 came from families with incomes below $20,000. More than 35 percent of individuals in families making less than $10,000 were uninsured as compared with 6.6 percent of individuals in families with annual incomes of $75,000 or more.
[6]
Of the 45.7 uninsured Americans, over half are a racial or ethnic minority.
Hispanics have the largest percent of uninsured (33.1 percent), followed by American Indians and Alaskan Natives (32.9 percent), and African Americans (20 percent).
[7]
[1]DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica Smith, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-235, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2008. [4]DeNavas-Walt, C., op. cit. [6]Fronstin, Paul, op.cit. [7]DeNavas-Walt, C., op. cit.
