New Resources Examine Trends In the Uninsured and Access to Care
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured has issued four new and updated resources on the trends affecting the nation’s 45 million people without health insurance:
• The Decline in the Uninsured in 2007: Why Did It Happen and Can It Last? http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7826.cfm examines the underlying shifts in health insurance coverage in 2007, which resulted in a 1.5 million decrease in the number of uninsured people under age 65, due to increased public coverage, including about 300,000 in Massachusetts, which implemented its comprehensive health reform that year. The brief projects that the current economic downturn and rising unemployment rate likely will cause the number of uninsured to grow by at least 2 million in 2008.
• Trends in Access to Care Among Working-Age Adults, 1997-2006 http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7824.cfm finds about 39 million working-age adults nationally reported cost as a barrier to receiving needed health care in 2006, a number that grew by an average of 1 million people annually over the decade studied. Uninsured working-aged adults experienced the most consistent erosion over the 10 years, resulting in a widening gap in access to care between insured and uninsured adults.
• The Uninsured: A Primer http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7451.cfm provides key facts about the nation’s uninsured population, including who the uninsured are, why they do not have health insurance, how coverage has changed over time, and the difference health insurance makes in people’s lives.
• Health Insurance Coverage in America, 2007 http://facts.kff.org/chartbook.aspx?cb=55 offers easy-to-use Web-based charts and tables reflecting the latest available data on the uninsured. The chartbook examines all nonelderly, children, nonelderly adults, and working adults separately, breaking out key data by age, gender, family income, family work status, industry, employer size, education, race/ethnicity, citizenship, and health status.
[posted on Kaiser Family Foundation email]
