How Many Americans Are Uninsured? (2024)

FAQs

How many US Americans are uninsured? ›

The Share of Americans without Health Insurance in 2022 Matched a Record Low. In 2022, 26 million people — or 7.9 percent of the population – were uninsured, according to a report in September 2023 from the Census Bureau.

Noncitizens under age 65 constitute about 8 percent of the total US population. However, they make up almost 32 percent of the total uninsured population in the country. We estimate a total US uninsured population of about 27 million in 2024, of which 8.6 million are noncitizens.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Mar. 31, 2022 — An estimated 112 million (44%) American adults are struggling to pay for healthcare, and more than double that number (93%) feel that what they do pay is not worth the cost.

Federal, state, and local governments support uncompensated care to uninsured Americans and others who cannot pay for the costs of their care, primarily as hospital ($23.6 billion) and clinic services ($7 billion).

Highlights from the report include: 8.4% or 27.6 million Americans of all ages did not have health insurance in 2022 compared to 10.3% or 33.2 million in 2019. In the same time period, 4.2% or 3 million children did not have health insurance compared with 5.1% or 3.7 million in 2019.

uninsurance has been attributed to a number of factors, including rising health care costs, the economic downturn, an erosion of employer-based insurance, and public program cutbacks. Developing effective strategies for reducing uninsurance requires understanding why people lack insurance coverage.

The nation's uninsured rate declined significantly in early 2023, relative to 2020, reaching an all-time low of 7.7 percent for U.S. residents of all ages in the first quarter (January-March) of 2023, based on new data from the National Health Interview Survey.

Age. Three-quarters of the uninsured are adults (ages 18–64 years), while one-quarter of the uninsured are children. Compared with other age groups, young adults are the most likely to go without coverage.

Texas remains the state with the most uninsured Americans, but recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that last year's percentage of Texans without health coverage, 16.6%, was at one of the lowest points in a decade.

Among people enrolled in employer plans, those with low income especially struggled with health care costs: 56 percent with income under 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($29,160 for an individual and $60,000 for a family of four) reported difficulty paying these costs.

Why is healthcare so unaffordable in America? ›

There are many factors that contribute to the high cost of healthcare in the country. These include wasteful systems, rising drug costs, medical professional salaries, profit-driven healthcare centers, the type of medical practices, and health-related pricing.

Healthcare System Performance Ranking

Key findings: “The top-performing countries overall are Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia. The United States ranks last overall, despite spending far more of its gross domestic product on health care.

There is no longer a federal penalty for not having health insurance. But in DC, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and California, the state imposes its own penalty (collected via state tax returns) if a person doesn't maintain health insurance and isn't eligible for an exemption.

Not having health insurance can lead to large debt, affect your health if you delay care and may even hurt you at tax time, depending on your state.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that lack of health insurance leads to 18,000 deaths a year. That makes it the sixth- leading cause of death among people ages 25 to 64—after cancer, heart disease, inju- ries, suicide, and cerebrovascular disease, but before HIV/AIDS or diabetes.

MALVERN, Pa., Oct. 31, 2023—About one in seven U.S. drivers (14.0 percent) operated a private- passenger vehicle without liability insurance in 2022, according to an estimate contained in a new report released today by the Insurance Research Council (IRC).

In 2022, 14.0 percent of motorists, or about one in seven drivers, were uninsured, according to a 2023 study by the Insurance Research Council (IRC). From 2017 to 2019, most states saw declining UM (Uninsured Motorist) rates. The largest decrease was in Montana, while the largest increases were in Florida and Michigan.