How Many People Lack Health Insurance and For How Long? |
May 2003 |
Notes
Numbers in the text and tables may not sum to 100 because of rounding.
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More than 240 million people in the United States have health insurance
today through a variety of private and public sources. At the same time,
however, millions of people lack such coverage, and policymakers have proposed
a range of approaches for expanding health insurance coverage. Far from
being a static group, the uninsured population is constantly changing:
while many people are chronically uninsured, many more are uninsured for
shorter periods of time, such as between jobs. This Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) paper, prepared at the request of the Chairman of the House
Committee on Ways and Means, uses data from several federally sponsored
national surveys to examine the size, demographic characteristics, and
dynamics of the uninsured population. In keeping with CBO's mandate to
provide objective, impartial analysis, the paper makes no recommendations.
Lyle Nelson of CBO's Health and Human Resources Division prepared the
paper under the supervision of Steven Lieberman. Carol Frost provided assistance
with data and tabulations. The paper benefited from comments from reviewers
outside of CBO, including Katherine Swartz of Harvard University and Charles
Nelson of the U.S. Census Bureau. Within CBO, James Baumgardner, Seth Giertz,
Arlene Holen, and Bruce Vavrichek provided useful comments.
Christine Bogusz edited the manuscript, and John Skeen proofread it.
Judith Cromwell produced drafts of the manuscript, Kathryn Winstead prepared
the report for publication, and Annette Kalicki prepared the electronic
versions for CBO's Web site.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Director
May 2003
Tables |
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1. |
Percentage and Number of Nonelderly People Without Health Insurance
in 1998 and 1999, Estimated from Four National Surveys |
2. |
Nonelderly People Without Health Insurance in 1998, by Selected Characteristics |
3. |
Distribution of Uninsured Spells by Duration and Age |
4. |
Distribution of Uninsured Spells by Duration and Selected Characteristics |
5. |
Distribution of Uninsured Spells and Uninsured Months Among Nonelderly
People Who Had a Spell That Began Between July 1996 and June 1997 |
6. |
Reasons Reported by Nonelderly Adults for Lacking Health Insurance |
B-1. |
Projected Distribution of Spells in Progress in a Given Month and
a Given Year, by Duration, Based on the Actual Distribution of New Spells |
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Figures |
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S-1. |
Estimated Number of Nonelderly People Without Health Insurance
in 1998 |
S-2. |
Distribution of Uninsured Spells Among Nonelderly People in a Given
Year and at a Given Point in Time, by Duration |
A-1. |
Distribution of Uninsured Spells That Began Between July 1996 and
June 1997, by Duration |
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Box |
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1. |
Two Approaches to Measuring Uninsured Spells |
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