New Survey Measures Number Of Uninsured Americans

New Survey Measures Number Of Uninsured Americans in General Healthcare

The latest survey of uninsured Americans put the number at 14.8% of the population. That’s 43.6 million people who went without health insurance in 2006. The numbers were based on a survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics and released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Previous federal estimates have said as many as 46 million people had no insurance, according to Reuters and the New York Times.

In the NCHS survey, 100,000 households were interviewed to determine the total number of uninsured Americans and the number of children without coverage.

Between 1997 and 2006, the number of uninsured children went down from 13.9% to 9.3%. The decrease is mostly credited to the inception of the federal and states Children’s Health Insurance Programs, which has covered more than 6 million children nationwide since it’s creation in 1997.

The survey also found the percentage of residents with Texas health insurance was the lowest in the country; 23.8% of the population had no coverage. Michigan had the lowest number; 7.7% of the population was uninsured.

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