page_title: Health insurance coverage in the United States
section_title: Causes
hierarchical_section_title: Health insurance coverage in the United States / Causes
caption_attribution_description: English: This image depicts the numbers of uninsured Americans and the uninsured rate from 1987 to 2008.
context_page_description: Health insurance coverage in the United States is provided by several public and private sources. During 2019, the U.S. population overall was approximately 330 million, with 59 million people 65 years of age and over covered by the federal Medicare program. The 273 million non-institutionalized persons under age 65 either obtained their coverage from employer-based or non-employer based sources, or were uninsured. During the year 2019, 89% of the non-institutionalized population had health insurance coverage. Separately, approximately 12 million military personnel received coverage through the Veteran's Administration and Military Health System.
  Despite being among the top world economic powers, the US remains the sole industrialized nation in the world without universal health care coverage.
  Prohibitively high cost is the primary reason Americans give for problems accessing health care. At approximately 30 million in 2019, higher than the entire population of Australia, the number of people without health insurance coverage in the United States is one of the primary concerns raised by advocates of health care reform.
context_section_description: Americans who are uninsured may be so because their job does not offer insurance; they are unemployed and cannot pay for insurance; or they may be financially able to buy insurance but consider the cost prohibitive.  During 2009 the continued low employment rate has negatively affected those who had previously been enrolled in employment-based insurance policies. Census Bureau states a 55 percent drop. Other uninsured Americans have chosen to join a health care sharing ministry as an alternative to insurance.
  Low-income workers are less likely than higher income individuals to be offered coverage by their employer (or by their spouse's employer) and less able to afford buying it on their own. Beginning with wage and price controls during World War II, and cemented by an income tax exemption ruling in 1954, most working Americans have received their health insurance from their employers. However, recent trends have shown an ongoing decline in employer-sponsored health insurance benefits. In 2000, 68% of small companies with 3 to 199 workers offered health benefits. Since that time, that number has continued to drop to 2007, when 59% offered health benefits. For large firms with 200 or more workers, in 2000, 99% of employers offered health benefits; in 2007, that number stayed the same. On average, considering firms of all numbers of employees, in 2000, 69% offered health insurance, and that number has fallen nearly every year since, to 2007, when 60% of employers offered health insurance.
  One study published in 2008 found that people of average health are least likely to become uninsured if they have large group health coverage, more likely to become uninsured if they have small group coverage, and most likely to become uninsured if they have individual health insurance. But, "for people in poor or fair health, the chances of losing coverage are much greater for people who had small-group insurance than for those who had individual insurance." The authors attribute these results to the combination in the individual market of high costs and guaranteed renewability of coverage. Individual coverage costs more if it is purchased after a person becomes unhealthy but "provides better protection (compared to group insurance) against high premiums for already individually insured people who become high risk."  Healthy individuals are more likely to drop individual coverage than less-expensive, subsidized employment-based coverage, but group coverage leaves them "more vulnerable to dropping or losing any and all coverage than does individual insurance" if they become seriously ill.
  Roughly a quarter of the uninsured are eligible for public coverage but are not enrolled. Possible reasons include a lack of awareness of the programs or of how to enroll, reluctance due to a perceived stigma associated with public coverage, poor retention of enrollees, and burdensome administrative procedures. In addition, some state programs have enrollment caps.
  A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation published in June 2009 found that 45% of low-income adults under age 65 lack health insurance. Almost a third of non-elderly adults are low income, with family incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level. Low-income adults are generally younger, less well educated, and less likely to live in a household with a full-time worker than are higher income adults; these factors contribute to the likelihood of being uninsured. In addition, the chances of being healthy decline with lower income; 19% of adults with incomes below the federal poverty level describe their health as fair or poor.
caption: The numbers of uninsured Americans and the uninsured rate from 1987 to 2008
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