NU Online News Service, Sept. 30, 2003, 5:34 p.m. EDT – The number of U.S. residents without health insurance increased 5.7% between 2001 and 2002, to 43.6 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Adults between the ages of 18 and 24 continued to be the residents most likely to lack health coverage. The percentage who lacked coverage increased to 29.6% in 2002, from 28.1%, and the number who lacked coverage increased 5.9%, to 8.1 million.
But the weak economy and cutbacks in government insurance programs took the heaviest toll on adults between the ages of 35 and 44. The number of residents in that age group who lacked coverage increased 9.1%, to 7.8 million, officials report.
U.S. residents in households with annual incomes over $75,000 are more likely to have health coverage than other residents are. But residents in the top income category suffered the biggest drop in access to health coverage between 2001 and 2002. During that period, the number of uninsured residents in the top income category increased 9.6%, to 7.3 million.
Bruce Bodaken, chairman of Blue Shield of California, San Francisco, and an outspoken proponent of universal health care, responded to the latest Census Bureau figures by calling for a move toward universal health care.
"As many people as live in California, Massachusetts, and Iowa combined are living sicker, shorter lives and facing the constant threat of bankruptcy because they don't have health insurance," Bodaken says in a statement. "The rest of us are footing the bill, paying more than $30 billion annually in higher premiums and taxes to cover the medical bills they can't pay, and our emergency rooms are overwhelmed."
