Almost 2 Million United States Veterans Lack Health Insurance

Should military veterans be able to rely upon having health insurance when they are no longer serving in the military? In a recent press release, researchers advised that nearly two million U.S. military veterans, and the members of their households (another 3.8 million people), do not have health insurance.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that of the nearly two million uninsured veterans, 12.7 percent of them are under the age 65. Additionally, the number of veterans who did not have health insurance rose by 290,000 between 2000 and 2004.

These veterans, and their families, often earned too much money to make them elgible for state and federal medical aid programs, such as Medicaid or care from the Veterans Administration. However, their income was also insufficient to allow them to purchase health coverage for their family.

Over 645,000 of the veterans that did not have insurance were old enough that they may have served in Vietnam. Over half (56.5 percent) were over the age of 44 and more than one million (1,105,891) served at a different time, including the first Gulf War and Iraq.

Even though they are veterans, over one million veterans are not able to access medical care through the Veterans Administration. Most of the military veterans who are considered to be "middle-income" were ineligible for care by the Veterans Administration due to policy changes enacted by the Bush administration in 2003.

Only veterans who have a disability that was caused by their military service now have access to benefits from the VA according to data contained in this study.

If a military veteran makes more than $30,000 per year, they are ineligible for VA medical care. A military veteran with four dependents must earn less than $38,948 to be eligible to receive medical care from the VA.