Uninsured in 2008 reaches 46.3 million

According to HealthLeaders Media, the number of uninsured people in the United States reached 46.3 million in 2008. A representation of 15.4% of the U.S. population. The report further identified the following statistics:

• Among the foreign-born population, the uninsured rates for both naturalized citizens (18%) and non-citizens (44.7%) was statistically unchanged.
• The Northeast and Midwest, each at 11.6% had lower uninsured rates than the West (17.4%) and (18.2%)
• The number of people with health insurance increased from 25.3 million in 2007 to 255.1 million in 2008.
• Between 2007 and 2008, the number of people covered by private health insurance decreased from 202 million to 201 million, while the number covered by government health insurance climbed from 83 million to 87.4 million. The number covered by employment-based health insurance declined from 177.4 million to 176.3 million.
• The number of uninsured children declined from 8.1 million (11%) in 2007 to 7.3 million (9.9%) in 2008. Both the uninsured rate and number of uninsured children were the lowest since 1987, the first year that comparable health insure data were collected.
• Although the uninsured rate for children in poverty declined form 17.6% in 2007 to 15.7% in 2008, children in poverty were more likely to be uninsured than all children.