Minnesota Has Lowest Rate of Uninsured Residents, Study Finds
Minnesota has the lowest rate of uninsured adult residents and Texas has the highest rate, according to a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study released on Wednesday, the AP/Long Island Newsday reports. According to the study, based on CDC data from 2003, the states with the lowest rates of uninsured adults included Minnesota at 8.3%, Hawaii at 9.8% and Delaware at 10.2%. The states with the highest rates of uninsured adults included Texas at 30.7%, Louisiana at 26.4% and New Mexico at 26% percent, the study found. In addition, the study found that many uninsured state residents had jobs.
"There is an old image that people who are uninsured don't work or are on public assistance," Stuart Schear of RWJF said, adding, "That's never really been accurate and is completely inaccurate today." The study found that the states with the lowest rates of uninsured adults with jobs were Minnesota at 6.9% and Hawaii at 8.5%. The states with the highest rates of uninsured adults with jobs were Texas at 26.6%, Louisiana at 22.6% and New Mexico at 22.6%, according to the study (Freking, AP/Long Island Newsday, 4/27).
In addition, the study found racial disparities in health coverage. Nationwide, about 35% of Latino adults with jobs are uninsured, compared with almost 19% of African-American adults with jobs and 12% of whites with jobs, the study found (Katz, New York Daily News, 4/27). The study is available online.
APM's "Marketplace" on Tuesday reported on two new analyses of census data indicating that the number of U.S. residents without health insurance may be overstated by as much as nine million people. The segment includes comments from Christopher Conover, professor of health policy at Duke University's Center for Health Policy, Law and Management; and Charles Nelson, assistant chief of the Census Bureau income division (Palmer, "Marketplace," APM, 4/26). The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.
In addition, WBUR's "On Point" on Tuesday in the second hour of the program interviewed Rushika Fernandopulle and Susan Starr Sered, co-authors of "Uninsured in America: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity," in which they argue that the connection between health insurance and employment is creating a "new caste of the ill, infirm, and marginally-employed." Fernandopulle is an internist at Massachusetts General Hospital and faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Starr Sered is a medical anthropologist and senior research associate at the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights at Suffolk University (Ashbrook, "On Point," WBUR, 4/26). The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer and Windows Media.