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ONE
OUT OF FOUR
NON-ELDERLY MAINE PEOPLE WERE
UNINSURED DURING
2002-2003
290,000 Maine People, 79.3 Percent
from Working Families, Were Uninsured at Some Point
over the Past Two Years; Most Were Uninsured for at
Least Six Months
Approximately 290,000 Maine people - one out of four
people under 65 years of age - were uninsured for
at least one month during 2002-2003, according to
a report co-released today by the health consumer
organizations Consumers for Affordable Health Care
of Augusta and Families USA of Washington, D.C.
The report, based mainly on Census Bureau data, showed
that most of these uninsured Maine residents lacked
coverage for lengthy periods of time: 61.5 percent
were uninsured for six months or more.
Four out of five of the uninsured in Maine were from
working families. Families in Maine with incomes at
or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level
($19,146 a year for a single adult and $37,320 for
a family of four in 2003) were more than twice as
likely to be uninsured then families with incomes
above 200 percent of poverty.
According to Joe Ditré, the Executive Director
of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, "This
report is just one more indicator that the Dirigo
Health program is urgently needed. Maine has large
numbers of lower-income working people who are uninsured,
and the subsidies promised by this program will finally
enable them to purchase the coverage they need."
A select group of Governors and House Members spoke
at today's press conference in Washington, D.C. to
unveil the findings of the report, which included
data on all 50 states. Governor John Baldacci (D-ME),
Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS), Governor Tom Vilsack
(D-IA) and Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA), the Chair
of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Task Force on
Health ,were among those at the event.
The full report, entitled One in Three: Non-Elderly
Americans without Health Insurance, is available online
at www.familiesusa.org.
Or, click the following links for both national-
and state-level
data, as well as a detailed discussion of the methodology.
The Families USA report's estimate of the uninsured
is based on a different methodology than the widely
quoted estimate of 43.6 million uninsured people from
the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.
The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey asks
respondents a series of questions in March designed
to determine if the respondent did not have any health
insurance for the previous entire calendar year. However,
there are many people who are uninsured for periods
of time that do not neatly extend over a 12-month
calendar year. The Families USA report examines how
many people (under the age of 65) were without health
insurance for all or part of 2002 and 2003 - whether
they were uninsured for at least one month and up
to 24 months. The numbers in the report are drawn
from the most recent Census Bureau's Survey of Income
and Program Participation as well as the Current Population
Survey.
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