Uninsured America

By Jeanne Lambrew | August 26, 2004

Today, the Census Bureau reported that 45 million Americans lacked health insurance in 2003, up by 1.4 million from 2002 and 5.2 million from 2000. The report states that this increase is "statistically significant."

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45 million uninsured Americans is more than...

• All Americans age 65 and older (35.9 million)²
• All African Americans (37.1 million)³
• All Hispanic or Latino Americans (39.9 million)⁴

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45 million uninsured Americans is...

• 4 million more than the number of small business employees (41.0 million in 2001)⁵
• 20 million more than the number of military veterans (25 million)⁶
• Nearly 12 times more than the number of millionaires (3.8 million) -- although the growth in millionaires outstripped that of the uninsured (14 percent versus 3 percent)⁷

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45 million uninsured Americans is...⁸

• More than four times the population of Greece, site of the Summer Olympics (10.6 million)
• 12 million more than the population of Canada (32.2 million)
• Nearly 5 million more than the population of Spain (40.2 million)
• 20 million more than the population of Iraq (24.7 million)

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45 million uninsured Americans is...

• Nearly five times more than the number of Americans living with cancer (9.2 million in 2001)⁹
• 2.5 times higher than the number of Americans with diabetes (18.2 million in 2002)¹⁰
• 7 million more people than those living with HIV throughout the world (38 million)¹¹

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There are...

• Nearly 150 uninsured Americans for each physician in America ¹²
• Nearly 7,500 uninsured Americans for each hospital in America¹³
• Over 84,000 uninsured Americans for each Member of Congress

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45 million uninsured Americans is about the same number of Americans living in...¹⁴

• West coast states (45.2 million in California, Oregon and Washington)
• Middle America (44.7 million in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming)
• Northeastern states (42.0 million in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont)

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¹Unless otherwise noted, all of the comparisons use 2003 U.S. data.
²U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Table 2: Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex and Selected Age Groups for the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2003 (NC-EST2003-02), Released June 14, 2004, http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/national/tables/NC-EST2003-02.xls
³U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Table 3: Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex, Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2003 (NC-EST2003-03), Released June 14, 2004, http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/national/tables/NC-
EST2003-03.xls
⁴U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Table 3: Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex, Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2003 (NC-EST2003-03), Released June 14, 2004, http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/national/tables/NC-EST2003-03.xls
⁵U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics about Business Size (including small business), Table 2a. Employment Size of Employer Firms, 2001 http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html#EmpSize
⁶U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 2004. FY 2005 Budget of the United States Government. Washington, D.c=: Government Printing Office, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/va.html
⁷Sahadi J. September 30, 2003. “Millionaires on the rise,” CNN/Money, http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/29/pf/millionaire/q_
millionairesmultiply/
⁸U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base Summary Demographic, http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbsum.html
⁹Ries LAG, Eisner MP, Kosary CL, Hankey BF, Miller BA, Clegg L, Mariotto A, Feuer EJ, Edwards BK (eds). SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975-2001, National Cancer Institute. Bethesda, MD, http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2001/, 2004.
¹⁰Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2004. National diabetes fact sheet: general information and national estimates on diabetes in the United States, 2003. Rev ed. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/pdf/ndfs_2003.pdf
¹¹UNAIDS. 2004. Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. Geneva, http://www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/GAR2004_html/
ExecSummary_en/ExecSumm_en_01.htm#P52_5995
¹²The number of physicians in 2003: 301,270, from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. May 2003 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, Healthcare Practitioner and Technical Occupations, http://www.bls.gov/oes/2003/may/oes_29He.htm
¹³The number of Medicare inpatient hospitals in 2003: 6,024, from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 2004. 2003 Data Compendium. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, http://www.cms.hhs.gov/researchers/pubs/datacompendium
/2003/03pg56a.pdf
¹⁴U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division: Table ST-EST2003-01res - Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Selected Age Groups for the United States and States: July 1, 2003 and April 1, 2000, Released March 10, 2004 , http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/states/tables/ST-EST2003-
01res.xls