Uninsured: A Growing Problem in the U.S.

Each year in the United States, more people are added to the list of the uninsured. This group includes a wide variety of citizens from all walks of life, including the self-employed, recent college graduates, middle-aged people who have been forced into early retirement, working class families, middle class families, children . . . there is no single face of the uninsured.

How Many Are Uninsured?

In 2005, the United States Census Bureau announced 45 million Americans were without health care coverage. Just two years later, the number has grown by an additional 2 million. Now nearly 16% of the population is uninsured. And those statistics do not include the millions of other Americans who are underinsured - unable to pay the deductibles, co-insurance, or co-payments required under their health insurance plans.

Those numbers also fail to include Americans who may have gone without medical insurance for several months during the year as a result of a job change or other life event. The Census Bureau's definition of "uninsured" is a person who has no health insurance through public or private sources for an entire year.

Employers & SCHIP: The Only Medical Insurance Options for Many

Part of the problem is that the increasing costs of health insurance - premiums increased by more than double the rate of inflation in 2007 - have led more employers to cut medical coverage from their employee's benefit packages. Employer-provided health insurance is still the most cost-effective way to purchase health care coverage because the costs are spread out over a larger group. Unfortunately, the percentage of Americans receiving medical benefits from their employers dropped by almost 1% in a single year.

Of course, many of those uninsured workers also have children and an increasing number of them are also going without health insurance. Between 2005 and 2006, the percentage of children under 18 who had no medical insurance rose by nearly 1%. Those numbers may been higher except for the State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIPs) which step in to provide health care to kids when their parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid.

Health Insurance Statistics & Solutions

The Census Bureau's results also showed interesting changes in the number of uninsured in certain racial categories. Some of the findings were surprising. For example, the percentage of Hispanics and Asian Americans who were uninsured actually decreased between 2005 and 2006. However, their percentages - 34% and 16%, respectively, - were still much higher than the numbers for White Americans (10.8%). The percentage also increased for African-Americans. In 2005, 19% of African-Americans were uninsured. A year later, the number had increased to just over 20%.

While a lack of insurance is a serious problem, those Americans who could be classified as underinsured are facing potentially devastating debt if they have a medical emergency and do not have the health care coverage needed to pay those costs. A 2003 study by Health Affairs found that an additional 16 million Americans could be classified as underinsured. With the costs increasing yearly, that number has likely increased.

Politicians in most states are already working on health insurance plans to increase the coverage for the uninsured in their parts of the country. Almost every presidential nominee has also put forward his or her own health care plan for the Nation. Whether the results of these actions will lead to more comprehensive coverage for U. S. citizens is still left to be seen.

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