Originally published September 12 2005
More people without health insurance in 2004
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The number of people in the United States without health insurance increased by 859,000 people in 2004, according to a report by the U.S. Census Bureau.
In a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau, 45.8 million people were without medical coverage in 2004, an increase of 859,000 people from the year before.
The percentage of uninsured people hovered at 15.7 percent in both 2003 and 2004.
Meanwhile, the median household income was unchanged in real terms from 2003, leveling off at $44,389 in 2004.
There were also no changes in the most commonly used measures of income and equality, Charles Nelson, assistant division chief for income, poverty and health statistics in the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, said during a news conference in Washington, D.C.
"This is the second consecutive year that households did not experience an annual change in real median income," Nelson added.
At the same time, the nation's poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004.
According to the Current Population Survey (CPS), the actual number of people with health insurance rose by 2 million, to 245.3 million (84.3 percent of the population), between 2003 and 2004.
But this increase was counterbalanced by an increase in the number without coverage: 45 million in 2003 to 45.8 million in 2004.
The percentage of people covered by employer-based health insurance declined from 60.4 percent in 2003, to 59.8 percent in 2004.
At the same time, the percentage of people covered by government programs such as Medicaid rose, from 26.6 percent to 27.2 percent during the same time period.
"This stabilization in overall coverage rate can be explained by increases in government coverage that offset the decline in employer-based coverage," Nelson said.
"Congress should immediately rededicate itself to helping all Americans access affordable health coverage in light of today's numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau," Consumers Union said in a prepared statement.
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