Four Out of Five Working Families Do Not Have Health Insurance, Says Report

In a recent press release, Families USA has reported that nearly 1 in 3 people in America were uninsured during 2006-2007. The study found that the highest percentage of people who were uninsured for some part of the year are working families. When it comes to health insurance, or the lack of it, age and race don't matter. 89.6 people in America do not have health insurance.

Four out of five people have gone without health insurance
Four out of five of the uninsured came from families where at least one person was employed full-time. Out of the 89.6 million uninsured people, 64 million are between the age of 18 and 64. More than a third of those people are between ages 25 to 44, the one age group with the highest number of uninsured people.

The current survey revealed that 17 million more people are going without health insurance than in 1999-2000, when the survey was last done. In 1999-2000, only 72.5 million people had gone without health insurance.

Most people without health insurance work
Of the 89.6 uninsured Americans, 70.6 percent worked full-time, and 8.7 worked part-time. Nearly two-thirds of Americans were uninsured for a period of six months or more.

States with the most uninsured people
States with the highest number of uninsured people during 2006-2007 were:
California (13.0 million)
Texas (9.3 million)
Florida (6.0 million)
New York (5.5 million)
Illinois (3.6 million)
Georgia (3.1 million)
Ohio (2.9 million)
Pennsylvania (2.9 million)
North Carolina (2.6 million)
Michigan (2.5 million)
New Jersey (2.4 million).

High percent of uninsured people
The previous survey was done in 1999-2000. The numbers of uninsured have risen dramatically since then. In 20 states plus the District of Columbia, more than a third residents under age 65 went without health insurance for all, or part of, two years. Only five years before, there were only 11 states with this problem.
As of the current survey:
* Nearly half of all Texans (45.7 percent) went without insurance for at least part of a two-year period. The other states and the percent of uninsured were: