|
Introduction
According to public opinion surveys, health care is currently the top domestic concern for Americans. There are many reasons for this concern, but one of the most important is the relentless growth in the number of people without health coverage.
To find out how many people are affected by this lack of health coverage, Families USA commissioned The Lewin Group to analyze data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). This analysis enabled us to determine how many people were uninsured for some portion of the 2006-2007 two-year period.
The analysis found that 89.6 million people under the age of 65 were uninsured for some or all of that two-year period. This constitutes more than one out of every three non-elderly Americans. That also represents an increase of 17 million uninsured Americans from 1999-2000 to 2006-2007.
This report provides a detailed analysis of who these uninsured Americans are, where they live, how long they have been without health coverage, and their demographic characteristics. It also shows that four out of five Americans who were uninsured during the 2006-2007 period were in working families.
With more and more people directly experiencing a lack of health coverage, this problem is already receiving top priority attention from the political candidates running for office in 2008. It remains to be seen, however, whether this attention will ultimately translate into policy changes that will result in every American having reliable and continuous access to high-quality, affordable health coverage.
[Return to top] |
|
Key Findings
Full Report
(pdf version)
Press Release
(English)
Press Release
(en español) |
