An estimated 44.3 million people in the United States, or 16.3 percent of the population, were without health insurance coverage during the entire 1998 calendar year. The estimates in this report are based on interviewing a sample of the population. Respondents provide answers to the survey questions to the best of their ability. As with all surveys the estimates differed from the actual values. The status of children's health care coverage did not change significantly from 1997 to 1998.
Employment remains the leading source of health insurance coverage.
Most private insurance was obtained through a current or former employer or union. The poor and near poor are more likely to lack coverage. The uninsured poor comprised 25.2 percent of all uninsured people. This percentage is down significantly from the previous year, however, when 43.3 percent of poor people were covered by medicaid. Among the poor, adults aged 18 to 64 had much higher noncoverage rates than either children or the elderly.