No Health Insurance for You

Unfortunately it’s become as predictable as campaign contributions rising in campaign season, snow falling in the mountains in the winter, or the media’s penchant for doing blitz coverage of the Jon Benet Ramsey murder case.

The number of Americans without health insurance is increasing, according to new U.S. Census data released today, based on interviews with people from 100,000 U.S. households. More than 46 million people in the U.S. lacked health insurance in 2005, which is an increase of 1.3 million since 2004. That translates to 15.9 percent of the U.S. population uninsured in 2005.

In Colorado, over the three years between 2003 and 2005, an average of 16.9 percent of people lacked health insurance.  That’s about 788,000 people-more than live in the city of Denver. Only 13 states had higher rates of people uninsured.

Nationally, the percentage of children under 18 who were uninsured rose from 10.8 percent in 2004 to 11.2 percent in 2005. Minorities were more likely to be uninsured as were people who are not citizens.

Experts are blaming the increase on the fact that job-based insurance rates are going down.

Forty-six million people. No health insurance. This is a big problem, people. Shouldn’t we be doing something about it?

[crossposted at Muckraking Mom]

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