Study Says a Third of Non-Elderly Face Health Insurance Gaps

WASHINGTON — Nearly 90 million Americans under 65 — more than one out of three — have to contend with a gap in health insurance lasting a month or more, the health advocacy group Families USA says in a report being released Thursday.

An analysis made for the nonprofit group says that many people faced such a coverage cap, or are predicted to, from February 2006 to January 2008. That's far higher than a recently released U.S. Census Bureau estimate of 47 million people who were uninsured for all of 2006.

The number and percentage of the uninsured has jumped dramatically since a similar study was done for Families USA covering the period 1999-2000. That study found that 72.5 million non-elderly people, nearly 30 percent of that age group, lacked insurance. The latest study put the number at 89.6 million and 35 percent.

Of the people who went without insurance in the new study, 64 percent were uninsured for six months or more and half were uninsured for nine months or more.

Texas had the highest rate of non-elderly people who lacked insurance for all or part of two years at 46 percent.

"The huge number of people without health coverage over the past two years helps to explain why health care has become the top domestic issue in the 2008 presidential campaign," Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said in a statement accompanying the report.

"The expansion of health coverage in America is no longer simply a matter of altruism about other people, but a matter of intense self-interest," he said.

The report found that nearly four out of five of the uninsured non-elderly — nearly all elderly Americans have health care coverage through Medicare — were in families in which at least one person works full-time or part-time. Nearly 15 million uninsured, mostly children, were not in the work force.

More than one-third of those without insurance were between 25 and 44 years old, while 28 percent were 17 or under and 17 percent were between 18 and 24.

Hispanics had the highest rate of uninsured of any ethnic group at nearly 61 percent, followed by blacks at 45 percent and whites at 26 percent.

The Families USA analysis was done by the Lewin Group, a respected independent organization that often analyzes health care and census data.