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82 Million Uninsured in '02-03'Americans under 25, middle class lacking, study says
WASHINGTON (AP) June 16, 2004 - Nearly 82
million people, one-third of the U.S. population younger than 65, lacked
health insurance at some point over the past two years and most of those were
uninsured for more than nine months, a study by the private group Families USA
says.
The problem reaches deep into the middle class, affects Blacks and Hispanics disproportionately and is most pronounced among people younger than 25, according to the group's analysis of census data. The study, which was being released today, found that 8.5 million Texas residents, or 43.4 percent of the non-elderly population there, did not have health insurance, the highest rate in the country. Other states where more than 35 percent of people younger than 65 were uninsured were: New Mexico, 42.4 percent; California, 37.1 percent; Nevada, 36.8 percent; Louisiana, 36.2 percent; Arizona, 35.7 percent; Mississippi, 35.1 percent, and Oklahoma, 35 percent. Numerous studies have associated a lack of health insurance with poorer health and earlier death, as well as delayed and inadequate medical care. Ron Pollack, Families USA's executive director, said fast-rising health care costs, a soft labor market in which employers are passing more health costs to workers and reductions in state safety net programs are resulting in substantial increases in the number of people who are uninsured. The study focused on Americans younger than 65 because older Americans are covered by the federal government's Medicare program. Typically, the Census Bureau reports the number of uninsured Americans as those without health insurance for the entire year. The bureau reported last September that 43.6 million were uninsured for all of 2002, and updated figures will be released this summer. But the ranks of the uninsured grows when a longer time span is examined and when also including those who are uninsured for less than a year. |
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