Uninsured Myths and Facts
| 1 | MYTH: People without health coverage don't work. | FACT: More than eight in 10 of the non-elderly uninsured (82.8 percent) live in families where the head of the family works.1 |
| 2 | MYTH: Most people without health insurance are very poor. | FACT: In 2006, more than 33 million of the uninsured had household incomes of $25,000 or more, compared with nearly 14 million in households earning less.2 (The federal poverty level for a family of four in 2006 was $20,000.) |
| 3 | MYTH: It doesn’t really matter whether a person has health insurance. | FACT: An estimated 18,000 - 22,000 Americans die each year because they don't have health coverage.3 |
| 4 | MYTH: Virtually everyone who works for a large employer has health coverage. | FACT: One in five uninsured workers (22.4 percent) are employed in firms with 500 or more employees.4 |
Sources
1 Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates from the March Current Population Survey, 2007 Supplement.
2 "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006." U.S. Census Bureau, August 2007, table 6, p. 21.
3 "Final Report Release Event – Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations." Institute of Medicine, January 14, 2004. and Dorn, S. "Uninsured and Dying Because of It: Updating the Institute of Medicine Analysis on the Impact of Uninsurance on Mortality." Urban Institute, 2008.
4 Fronstin P. "Sources of Health Insurance and Characteristics of the Uninsured: Analysis of the March 2007 Current Population Survey." Employee Benefit Research Institute, October 2007, figure 11, p. 14.
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