How Many Americans Without Health Insurance?

You often hear the number 45 million quoted but you rarely hear who comprises these numbers. Everybody just assumes it's the poor, the few who can't afford it.

Dr. David Gratzer has gone through the numbers and his results will shock you. He writes,

A full 16% of the uninsured, the study found, have incomes above $75,000 a year and could obviously afford insurance if they chose to buy it. Roughly a third of those lacking insurance earn $50,000 a year or more.

You may think that a poor single mom with three children living in South-Central Los Angeles is among the uninsured, but in fact, she is eligible for Medicaid, as are her children. The BlueCross BlueShield study notes that 1 in 3 of the uninsured are eligible for — but not enrolled in — a government-sponsored health program. Because Medicaid and children's health programs allow patients to be signed up literally in the ER, these individuals could be covered; they just choose not to do the paperwork.

And of the remaining uninsured, 6 million lack insurance for only a few months.

Economist Steve Antler adds some interesting commentary on the numbers as well. He writes,

Putting the numbers in percentage terms, the ratio of uninsured employees to total employment is something like 1%-2%, the exact number depending on whether you include government workers in the denominator, how you handle undocumented immigration and the underground economy, and your assumed ratio of uninsured people to uninsured employees.

So we went from '45 million uninsured Americans' to the fact that it's closer to 1-2% of employees. A perfect example of the power of hyperbole.