Lack of Health Insurance measures the percentage of the population not covered by private or public health insurance.  Individuals without health insurance have great difficulty accessing the health care system, frequently do not participate in preventive care programs and can add substantially to the cost of healthcare due to delayed care  and emergency department treatment.

Table 29 displays the 2007 ranks, based on 2006 data (March 2007 Current Population Survey, Washington, D.C., U.S. Census Bureau). 

Lack of coverage ranged from less than 10 percent in Rhode Island, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine and Connecticut to over 20 percent in Texas,
New Mexico, Louisiana, Florida, Arizona and Mississippi.  The national average
is 15.8 percent (47 million people) uninsured, which is an increase of 0.5 percent from the restated 2006 Edition.  If the United States as a whole could emulate the best state, the number of uninsured would decrease by about 22 million people or about the population of Texas, the second largest state in the United States.

In the last year, the rate of uninsured population decreased in 13 states, including West Virginia (a decrease of 3.4 percent) and Rhode Island (a decrease of 2.9 percent).  The rate of uninsured population increased in 35 states, including an increase of 4.2 percent in Louisiana and 3.9 percent in Mississippi.

In the last year, the U.S. Census Bureau has changed the method of estimating the rate of uninsured population.  This change has resulted in the national rate
of uninsured population being estimated 0.5 to 0.8 percent lower than with the former method.  When applied retroactively to states using the 2005 data, this results in a reported rate of uninsured population that is 0.2 percent to 1.0
percent lower.  For example, the new methodology reduced the stated rate of uninsured population in Virginia in 2005 from 13.6 percent to 12.8 percent of the population, a decrease of 0.8 percent of the population.  The revised rate is six percent less than the original rate.

The Census Bureau states the reasons for the change as follows:

The Census Bureau discovered the need for a revision during a conversion to a more accurate operating system for the Current Population Survey. In improving the quality and timeliness of the data, the Census Bureau noted that, in a small percentage of cases, some residents in a household were tabulated as "not covered" by insurance when they had in fact reported coverage. No other questions in the survey
were affected. ^[1]

This report compares values using the new method of calculating.   

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