The percentage of Americans without health insurance coverage rose from 15.6% to 15.9% from 2004 to 2005, to 46.6 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States egion>: 2005, released on Monday. During the same time period, real median household income in the United States rose by 1.1%, reaching $46,326, and the nation’s official poverty rate remained statistically unchanged at 12.6%.
According to the report, the percentage of people covered by employment-based health insurance declined slightly from 59.8% to 59.5% between 2004 and 2005. While the number of people covered by government health programs increased from 79.4 million to 80.2 million, the percentage of people covered by government health insurance remained at 27.3%. There was no statistical difference in the number or percentage of people covered by Medicaid--38.1 million and 13%. The percentage and number of uninsured children increased from 10.8% to 11.2%, or from 7.9 million to 8.3 million children.
The uninsured rate, as well as the number of uninsured, remained statistically unchanged from 2004 to 2005 for whites (at 11.3% and 22.1 million) and for blacks (at 19.6% and 7.2 million). The rate for Asians increased to 17.9% in 2005, up from 16.5% in 2004. The number of uninsured Asians was 2.3 million, up from 2 million. The uninsured rate for Hispanics was 32.7% in 2005--statistically unchanged from 2004. The number of uninsured Hispanics increased from 13.5 million to 14.1 million. Based on a three-year average, 29.9% of people who reported American Indian and Alaska Native as their race were without coverage, and the three-year average for Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders was 21.8%.
The uninsured rate for those in the South increased from 18.2% to 18.6% between 2004 and 2005 and in the West from 17.4% in 2004 to 18.1% in 2005. The Midwest and Northeast had the lowest uninsured rates in 2005, at 11.9% and 12.3%, respectively. Texas had the highest percentage of uninsured (24.6%), while Minnesota had the lowest (8.7%). Read the report.
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