THE UNINSURED: New York Times Looks at Demographics
Today's New York Times answers the question: "Who are all these 43.4 million Americans, at the Census Bureau's last count, who do not have health insurance?" The Times reports that 11 million are children and the rest "run the gamut" from the young person working in a coffee shop who is not offered insurance to working adults who cannot afford the premiums their employers charge. Minority groups, particularly Hispanics, make up a disproportionate percentage of the uninsured, both because they are likely to work in jobs that do not offer insurance and because they may shy away from public benefit programs such as Medicaid (Kilborn, 2/26).
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