As health insurance costs rise, so does number of uninsured

By Sally Trafton and Laura Gustin


(May 4, 2006) — According to national and local data, many of us may be closer to losing our health insurance than we might think. "No way!" you say? Recent reports might convince you otherwise.

The Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey tells us that in 2005, nearly one-third of Americans ages 19 to 64 were uninsured for some part of the 12 months prior to the survey. Of those earning from $20,000 to $40,000, 41 percent had been uninsured for some part of the last year.

In 2001, 24 percent of U.S. adults, ages 19 to 64, or 38 million people, were uninsured or had lost their insurance for a period of time in the previous 12 months. By 2005, that total had risen to 48 million, or 28 percent of that age group, according to the survey.

Much of the growth in the numbers of uninsured results from lost coverage for working families. In the United States today, 83 percent of the uninsured come from working families, including 67 percent whose household head works full time.

The reality is that access to health insurance is diminishing. Since World War II, most Americans received health insurance as a benefit from their employer. For many years, employer-sponsored health insurance worked fairly well to keep down the numbers of those Americans without coverage.

However, during the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, employer-sponsored health insurance benefits have begun to erode, largely because of the escalating costs of health insurance premiums: Real wages have grown 11 percent since 1980, keeping pace with inflation, while real benefit growth has grown 50 percent. By comparison, health insurance premiums nationally have increased 73 percent over the last five years. Employers and individuals are increasingly being priced out of the market.

May 1 through May 7 is the fourth annual Cover the Uninsured Week. The Monroe County/Finger Lakes Partnership on the Uninsured is joining the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP and 16 other national organizations, to call attention to the 48 million uninsured in America.

Throughout the week and the month of May, the partnership is sponsoring activities to engage the community in a dialogue about the "Myths and Facts: The True Face of the Uninsured." As health care issues consume more and more of the media, from local news to editorial pages, we all need a better understanding of this critically important policy issue.

Why does covering the uninsured matter?

Studies show that uninsured people use fewer preventive and screening services, are sicker when diagnosed, receive fewer therapeutic services, have poorer health outcomes, and lower annual earnings because of poor health. The Institute of Medicine names lack of insurance as the sixth leading cause of death in the United States among adults ages 18 to 65.

The Monroe County/Finger Lakes Partnership for the Uninsured will examine methods we might use locally to increase the number of people with health insurance coverage and advocate on behalf of the region for the adoption of such approaches.

Our hope is to obtain coverage for the uninsured, and we believe this can be done through collaboration, developing an initiative that articulates a shared vision among the business community, insurers, health care leadership and consumer advocates.