Statement from Karen Davis: New Census Data on Uninsured Americans - The Commonwealth Fund

Today, the Census Bureau released the latest data on the number of Americans without health insurance. The number of uninsured individuals rose from 45.7 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008. This increase of 0.6 million would have been much worse without a growth in government-provided insurance of 4.4 million, including a 3.0 million increase in coverage under Medicaid. In contrast, employment-based coverage declined by about 1.1 million, from 177.4 million in 2007 to 176.3 million in 2008.

Today's data release shows the importance of the nation's safety net insurance system--Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The major bright spot in these new data was the fact that the rate of uninsured children is at its lowest rate since 1987 – at 9.9 percent. This improvement was a reflection of increased coverage for children under government health insurance programs, which rose from 31.0 percent in 2007 to 33.2 percent in 2008. However, more than 7.3 million children remain uninsured, which highlights the importance of the reauthorization and expansion of the CHIP program to 4 million more uninsured low-income children earlier this year.

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