Adults ages 18 to 34 are most at risk; nearly 3 out of 10 people in this age group lack health insurance. By contrast, just over 1 in 10 children under the age of 18 lack health insurance. Three quarters of the uninsured are adults (18 to 64 years old), while a quarter of the uninsured are children. Compared to other age groups, young adults are the most likely to be left without coverage.
There is also a difference in the rates of uninsured people between age groups, as newborn adults lack health insurance at a much higher rate than older Americans. Collins, Senior Scholar, Vice President of Coverage and Access to Health Care & Tracking Health System Performance, The Commonwealth Fund. These coverage losses that occur in the midst of a public health pandemic could further jeopardize the health of people infected with COVID-19 and exacerbate disparities between vulnerable people of color. One of the biggest discrepancies between Americans who have and do not have health insurance is in the level of education.
A person's chances of being uninsured increase if they work in an occupation or in a workplace where employers are less likely to offer a health benefit, if they are self-employed or work for a small business in the private sector, or if they have incomes that are too low to afford coverage. One of the reasons why some southern states might have lower insurance rates is that they haven't expanded their Medicaid programs to workers who would otherwise not be able to afford a health insurance plan, according to a U. The availability of health insurance in the workplace is the most important factor in determining whether wage earners and their families are insured. The lower acceptance rates among married wage earners compared to married male wage earners (63 percent versus 72 percent) result from the greater likelihood that married women will be insured as dependents under their spouse's health insurance policy (Buchmueller, 1996—1997, according to data from the 1993 Current Population Survey).
However, within this broader trend, variations in coverage sources and health status among age cohorts, as well as in participation in the labor market, generate important differences. The expansion of the Medicaid program from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s and the introduction of State Child Insurance Programs (SCHIP) helped reduce the proportion of low-income people without health insurance, from approximately 38 percent in 1987 to approximately 32 percent in 1999. Before the Affordable Care Act, people who were most at risk of not having health insurance were the least likely to have health insurance through a job. The age distribution of children without health insurance coverage is similar to the age distribution of children in the general population. In addition, they could be charged a higher rate, have their health problems excluded from their insurance, or be refused for health reasons.
Reform of the delivery system, health equity, uninsured people, coverage and access, government programs & policies, state health policy, Medicaid, expansion of Medicaid, Medicaid expansion, private insurance, health insurance market. The decentralized markets for labor and health services in the United States, and the different public policies of each state and location, together create unique contexts for the patterns already described for individuals and population groups.
