Uninsured population

By The Associated Press, The Associated Press
3:02 a.m. June 26, 2009

You've probably heard some big numbers concerning the number of people in the country who don't have health insurance. But who exactly are the uninsured? What's their background, where do they live, and how many of them are children?

Curiosity about the nation's uninsured population inspired one of the questions in this edition of "Ask AP," a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers' questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you'd like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions(AT)ap.org, with "Ask AP" in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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What is the breakdown of the 47 million uninsured Americans? By age, by other demographics, by legal and illegal immigrants? Of the small number of people I know, the ones without health insurance simply elect to spend their money on other things.
Betty Norris
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According to the most recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 50 million Americans lack any health insurance. The bureau defines insurance as private, such as that provided by an employer, or government, such as Medicare, Medicaid or military health care.

The uninsured include 20.5 million non-Hispanic whites, 14.8 million Hispanics and 7.4 million blacks. Many of the uninsured live in households that make $50,000 or less a year – 28 million Americans. A significant number are children – 8.1 million. People living in the South or the West are most likely to be without insurance – 20.2 million in the South and 11.8 million in the West.

According to the census report, 33.2 million of the uninsured are native-born Americans, 2.7 million are naturalized citizens and 9.7 million are non-U.S. citizens. There are probably many additional uninsured people who are illegal immigrants – a group that doesn't tend to be very receptive to census takers.

The census report was released in August 2008, and most experts say the number of uninsured has swelled due to job losses during the recession, with employer-covered insurance often going away when someone loses a
job.

Donna Cassata
Associated Press Writer
Washington

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