Home | Non-food | Healthcare | 60 million Americans had no health insurance last year

60 million Americans had no health insurance last year

12/18/2009 03:28:00 admin

Font size:

By Jimmy Downs

About 60 million people in the United States had no health insurance at some point in time after January 2008, according to survey data released from the Centers for Disease and Control Wednesday.

The CDC found 58.4 million lacked health insurance coverage at some point in the year prior to the survey and about 31.9 million did not have any insurance for more than 12 months.

About 60 percent of those who reported having no coverage for at least part of that period were unemployed working age adults.

Hispanics, men and young adults aged 18 to 24 were more likely than others to lack health coverage, the CDC reported.

The survey so called the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics was based on data from 32,694 people who responded from January through June 2009.

The health agency found 20 percent of children and adults aged 64 or younger were already covered by government health programs.

The number of children in government health insurance programs increase from 34.2 percent in 2008 to 37.4 percent in the first half year of 2009, the survey revealed.

Still 8.2 percent of children did not have healthcare coverage, according to the survey report.

Add to: Add to your del.icio.us

del.icio.us | Digg this story

Digg

Comments (8 posted):

ellis jardine on 12/18/2009 04:12:28

Out of how many? What vaguely is current US population? 360 million? I've forgotten. To say "60 million" w/o any referent grounding whatsoever is meaningless.

Tim Hanes on 12/18/2009 04:41:46

The population of the US is readily available, about 300 million. This should just be ready knowledge for any US citizen. But we as a nation are curiously short on facts. Like the FACT we spend 17 % GDP on healthcare ( and that's a large GDP) and rank 37th in results. Every other industrialized nation on Earth spends about 10% with better outcomes. This should simply be a FACT everyone who says squat about healthcare has to acknowledge before beginning a new point. We do NOT have the best healthcare on Earth, and we have the least government in healthcare. Anyone see some curious association there?

Chad Christian on 12/18/2009 05:58:53

Yet the Republicans have done everything in their power to stall healthcare reform. They claim they're in favor of reform, just not "bad" reform, yet that's a lie. If they were being honest with themselves, they'd admit that there isn't a chance in hell we'll get real healthcare reform if their party were in power, or if John McCain were in charge. Not. A. Chance.

The Dems take all the flak, yet if it weren't for the Democratic Party right now, America wouldn't even be having this discussion. Without Dems trying to help fix the broken healthcare system, it'd be more of the same -- more uninsured every year, more people losing insurance for pre-existing conditions, more bankruptcies due to illnesses and loss of private insurance, higher premiums, higher insurance company profits, etc., etc.

At LEAST the Dems are trying, which is more than the Republicans have done. God bless 'em for that.

Alex Woodland on 12/18/2009 06:35:03

In response to Tim who states that the US is 37th in Health care: Get YOUR facts right please.

Those rankings are based on two self-reported statistics: (1) infant mortality rates and (2) life expectancy.

In response to infant mortality: the US is the only nation to consider infants born at 24 weeks to be a live birth. Other countries consider live births to be 26 months or older (every country in Europe, Iran, Japan, etc). If the US numbers are adjusted for 26 weeks then we actually have the lowest infant mortality rate. May I also add that the UN statistics are SELF-REPORTED meaning that totalitarian regimes like Iran can skew what they report.

In regards to life expectancy: the US has a heterogeneous population that includes African Americans whose life expectancy in their ethic countries of origin is ~50, and Japanese whose native country's life expectancy is in the 80s. Considering the heterogeneous population of the US, EVERY ETHNIC GROUP HAS A LONGER LIFE EXPECTANCY IN THE US THAN IN THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN including Japanese.

In conclusion the US actually has the best health care system.

Please learn how statistics are compiled before you quote skewed comparisons. I am tempted to make conclusions about your intelligence, but I will conclude ignorance.

Jim on 12/18/2009 06:52:47

8.2 percent of children? The healthy Kids federal program amongst many other programs see to it that the only children not covered are children of parents not educated about the programs available. Looks like the same B.S. in the global warming debate.

Jim on 12/18/2009 06:58:11

Hey Chad the democrats blocked a Bush budget that would have increased benefits to children under the healthy kids program and allowed their parents to make more money and still have their children covered. I guess they were just waiting for a better budget, in the mean time the children could just go scratch.

on 12/18/2009 07:02:46

The only party to have a President that actually passed any degree of health care legislation was the republicans / Eisenhower. Chad you got a touvh of the Helsinki syndrome?

Katie Murphy on 12/18/2009 07:33:46

"The only party to have a President that actually passed any degree of health care legislation was the republicans / Eisenhower. Chad you got a touvh of the Helsinki syndrome?" Quote

Wasn't it the democrats who decided that our old folks should have a govt medical plan, Called medicare?

And wasn't it the dems who put through Social security so our old folks could live in dignity.

And most of the socialisms and other republican demogoguery about fixing our incomplete health care system are the same you know what used when SS and M/Care came into being.

Republicans - the party who worship the golden idol of Greed. Something we are warned about in the bible.

Didn't Jesus say there were only two commandments - Love God, and Love thy Neighbor as thyself?

The republicans -the so called religious right - I sure wouldn't want to be them when they face the pearly gates and realize they are actually standing on the trap door to hell.