More than 14 percent lack health insurance in US

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 14 percent of Americans
lacked health insurance last year, a slightly lower share than
2004, according to federal statistics published on Wednesday.

The survey, by the National Center for Health Statistics,
also found that 8.9 percent of U.S. children were not covered
by health insurance.

The issue of health-insurance coverage is at the center of
an extended debate over health care in the United States, which
relies mostly on employers to cover workers.

On Wednesday officials in San Francisco said they were
pressing ahead with plans for funding health care for 82,000
residents who do not have medical insurance, at a cost of $200
million a year.

The center’s report says that in 2005, 41.2 million
Americans, or 14.2 percent of the population, were uninsured
when its survey was conducted. It said 51.3 million had been
uninsured for at least part of the prior year and 29.2 million,
or 10 percent, had been uninsured for more than a year.

The study is based on a regular survey of more than 98,300
people.

The NCHS, part of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, found that insurance coverage varied widely among
states, from 6 percent without health insurance in
Massachusetts to more than 24 percent without in Texas.

More than 70 percent of adults and 62 percent of children
had private insurance coverage, while nearly 30 percent of
children and 11.5 percent of adults had some sort of public
insurance such as the State Children’s Health Insurance
Program, Medicare or Medicaid.

The numbers show a slight improvement over last year and
over 1997, the NCHS said. In 1997, 15.4 percent of U.S. adults
and 13.9 percent of children went without health insurance.

In 2004, 9.4 percent of children — 7 million children
under 18 years of age — lacked health insurance, as did 14.6
percent of the population, or 42.1 million Americans of all
ages.

The survey also found that diabetes and asthma are on the
rise, with up to 7.4 percent of the population diagnosed with
diabetes and 7.8 percent of the population with asthma.