Labor & Employment Law

50 Million Americans Lack Health Insurance

By James Parks

The nation’s worsening jobless situation, which played a big role in the increase in the current U.S. poverty rate to its highest level since 1994, also led to a big jump in the number of those without health insurance. The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that in 2009, some 6.6 million fewer Americans had job-based health insurance  than in 2008.

Public insurance programs like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the insurance plan for children, along with critical provisions in the economic Recovery Act, mitigated the damage, so that the total number of uninsured Americans under 65 rose by only 4.3 million. All totaled, that means 50.7 million Americans now have no health insurance. 

During a telephone press conference today, Elise Gould, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said the share of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-paid health insurance fell from 61.9 percent in 2008 to 58.9 percent in 2009, three times faster than in previous years.

The situation is likely to get worse, she said, pointing to the continuing jobs crisis, and the inability of  the private-sector economy to create enough jobs to accommodate the growth in the workforce, much less the millions of workers who are unemployed.

Another result of the drop in the number of insured, Gould said, is that people are more likely to put off needed health care when they have lost insurance or cannot afford treatment because they have lost their jobs.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 16, 2010 (boomark / email).