Figure
1.1. Percent of persons of all ages without health insurance coverage:
United States, 1997-2001
NOTES: A person was
defined as uninsured if he or she did not have any private health
insurance, Medicaid, State-sponsored or other government-sponsored health
plan, Medicare, or military plan at the time of the interview. A person
was also defined as uninsured if he or she had only Indian Health Service
coverage or had only a private plan that paid for one type of service such
as accidents or dental care. The analysis excluded persons with unknown
health insurance status (about 1% of respondents). The number of uninsured
persons was calculated as the percent of uninsured multiplied by the total
population, including persons with unknown coverage. The data on health
insurance status were cleaned and edited using an automated system based
on logic checks and keyword searches. For comparability, the estimates for
all years were created using these same procedures. The resulting
estimates of persons not having health insurance coverage are generally
0.1 percentage point lower than those based on manual editing procedures used for the
final data files. CI is confidence interval.
DATA SOURCE: Family
Core component of the 1997-2001 National Health Interview Surveys.
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In
2001, the total percent of uninsured persons was 14.1% (95% CI = 13.7% -
14.6%). The estimate was 14.2% (39.1 million persons) in the first
quarter, 13.9% (38.3 million) in the second quarter, 14.4% (39.9 million)
in the third quarter, and 14.0% (38.8 million) in the last quarter of
2001. The differences in the quarterly estimates are not statistically
significant.
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The
annual percent of persons without health insurance decreased from 15.4% in
1997 to 14.1% in 2001. |