What You Need to Know about Today’s Census Uninsured Numbers
The Census Bureau released their annual report on poverty, income, and the uninsured this morning; the report is now online and can be found here. Important figures you need to know from the health insurance section of the report:
- The total number of uninsured rose to 49.9 million, an increase of 919,000 compared to 2009’s REVISED estimate of 49.0 million uninsured. (As previously noted, last year’s report claimed 50.6 million uninsured Americans in 2009—but was conducted using a different methodology, making the two reports not directly comparable. This year’s report re-estimated the uninsured numbers for 2009 and earlier years using the new methodology; the re-estimated numbers are the ones cited below.)
- The uninsured rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 16.3 percent. As previously noted, this uninsured rate nearly matches the August total unemployment rate—including discouraged workers who have left the workforce and part-time workers who cannot find full-time employment—of 16.2 percent.
- The number of individuals with private insurance fell by only 300,000, led by a decline in the number of individuals with employer-sponsored health insurance of 1.5 million. This loss of employer-provided insurance was however offset by an increase of over 1 million buying direct purchase insurance (including insurance purchased on the individual market).
- The number of individuals with government-provided health insurance rose by almost 1.8 million, led by an increase in Medicaid enrollment of about 800,000. The Medicare population also rose by about 900,000, likely reflecting both the retirement of the first Baby Boomers and an increase in disability claims due to the recession.
- While the losses in employer-sponsored insurance were more than offset by the combined increases in government coverage through Medicaid and in direct purchase insurance, they were not able to overcome the 1.8 million population increase, thus leading to a slight increase in both the number and rate of uninsured Americans.
- The number of non-citizens (both legal and illegal) without health insurance rose totaled 9.7 million. Non-citizens comprise just under one-fifth of the total number of uninsured.
- The number of uninsured with household incomes under $25,000 rose by 846,000, to 16.1 million (or 32.3% of the uninsured). Many of these individuals may be eligible for public assistance through Medicaid and SCHIP. (Also, as noted in yesterday’s e-mail analysis, a significant number of uninsured may in fact already be enrolled in these programs, but their insurance status is not accurately reported by the Census data.)
- The number of uninsured with household incomes over $75,000 totaled about 9.5 million (or about 19% of the total number of uninsured). Many of these individuals may be able to obtain coverage on their own, but may choose not to do so if they do not consider the insurance policies offered to be of value to them.
It’s also important to note a significant change in the composition of insurance coverage for children. From 2008 through 2010, the number of children enrolled in private insurance dropped by 2.8 million, while the number of children enrolled in Medicaid (which also includes SCHIP) rose by 3.5 million, or more than 15%. As a reminder, 2009 was the year in which a significant expansion of SCHIP was enacted. While it’s unlikely that the entire migration from employer-sponsored coverage to Medicaid was entirely caused by individuals voluntarily dropping out of employer coverage to enroll in government-sponsored coverage, it likely contributed to this migration.
As we’ve previously noted, it’s important to emphasize that, to the extent the increase in the number of uninsured reflects a drop in employer-sponsored coverage, this number reflects the continued lack of economic growth—and, more critically, jobs growth—under this Administration’s policies. Even liberal organizations have directly linked loss of insurance coverage to loss of employment. However, such a link directly connects the rising number of uninsured to the Obama Administration’s failed predictions about the employment effects of their “stimulus” policies.