20 million working Americans are without health insurance

Apr 27 2005

A survey in the U.S. has found that more than 20 million working Americans have no health insurance and as many as one in four employed people are without health care in some states. The report also found that 41 percent of these uninsured report having trouble seeing a doctor when they need to compared to 9 percent of insured adults.

The report from the non-profit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found that Texas had the highest rate of uninsured working adults, at 27 percent, and in New Mexico and Louisiana, 23 percent of workers had no coverage. Minnesota had the lowest rate with 7 percent, and 56 percent of adults without health care coverage did not have a personal doctor or health care provider, compared with 16 percent of people with health insurance.

The researchers looked at data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and found that 20 percent of uninsured adults described their health as fair or poor, compared with 12 percent of adults with health coverage.

Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president of the Foundation, says that too many families suffer, and too many lives are lost because action has not been taken to address the problem.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 45 million Americans, or about 15 percent of the population, have no health coverage, either through private insurance or government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid.

People without insurance often pay more for health services and drugs, and hospitals must absorb their costs if they cannot get the patients to pay.