One in five U.S. workers lacks health insurance

Nationwide, one in five U.S. workers lacks health insurance, according to a new report by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Overall, 45.7 million Americans, 22% of men and 18% of women, are now uninsured, the study found.

The report—At the Brink: Trends in America’s Uninsured—compared average health insurance rates from 1994-1996 and with average figures from 2006-2007.

During that time, the increase in the price of insurance has far outstripped the growth of workers’ income with the average cost of for an individual policy riseing from $2,560 a year in 1996 to $4,118 a year in 2006, a 61 percent increase.

During the same period, the amount employees must pay for their coverage provided by their employer has risen 79 percent, while their wages have only increased 10 percent.

The good news is that the percentage of children without insurance has dropped from 13 percent to 9.2 percent, largely because more children are now being covered by government programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

In Washington state, among non-elderly residents, that is, people age 0-64 years not be eligible for Medicare, 732,315 do not have health insurance.

In absolute numbers this represents an increase of roughly 100,000 from ten years ago, but represents a relative decline of 0.2 percent, from 13.1 percent to 12.8 percent.

For comparison, Texas had the highest rate of uninsured among U.S. states, 27.4 percent, in the 2006-2007 period, and Massachusetts had the lowest, 8.9 percent.

Among workers in Washington state, 488,284 (14.7%) lack health insurance down from 15.2% from 1994-1996.

The percentage of  Washington children, age 0-18 years, without insurance also fell from 10.4 percent a decade before to 7.1 percent.  Though a more than 3 percent drop, the current rate of 7.1 percent represents 115,957 children in the state who do not have health coverage.

To learn more:

• Read the report At the Brink: Trends in American’s Uninsured.
• Read a guide for finding health insurance in Washington state prepared by the Families USA and Georgetown University for the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation’s Cover the Insured project.
• See LocalHealthGuide’s links to local health insurance information on our Resources & Support pages

Tags: Health Insurance, Health-care Reform, Healthcare Policy, Insurance, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Category: Health Insurance, Health-care Policy, Insurance