How many have health insurance varies over time as people move from job to job, leave the workforce temporarily, go on and off public assistance programs, or otherwise have their circumstances change. The statistics show your chance of having a spell in which you do not have the security of health insurance protection is quite high- and rising. Taking just people between age 18 and 64, one in three is either currently uninsured or had a gap in coverage in the past two years. The number of people without health insurance has been rising steadily since the late 1980s. Over the last ten years, about 1 million people each year have been added to the ranks of those who lack coverage in any given month.
Employers are the primary source of health insurance in the United States.
But government provides coverage to a large number of Americans both as an employer and through public insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Numbers total more than U.S. population because of dual coverage and people falling into more than one category over a year. Most people these days have insurance through managed care plans. Employers have rapidly switched to these plans both to save money and to push for improvements in the quality of care. The government is also shifting to managed care.