Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Census survey also shows SCHIP's effectiveness.

Thanks to government programs, the plight of individuals without health insurance did not worsen over the last year--despite reductions in employer health plans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's recent findings.

Overall, the number of those without health insurance coverage grew by 800,000 to 45.8 million in 2004, reported the bureau's population survey, entitled "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004."

This number means that the percentage of uninsured Americans stayed the same at 15.7 percent between 2003 and 2004. The percentage of children without health care coverage also stayed the same, holding at 8.3 million and 11.2 percent.

"The stabilization in the overall coverage rate can be explained by an increase in government coverage (notably Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program) that offset a decline in employment-based coverage," said Charles Nelson, the bureau's assistant division chief of Housing and Household Economic Statistics, who announced the survey's findings at an Aug. 30 news conference in Suitland, MD.

Judy Waxman, vice president for Health and Reproductive Rights at the National Women's Law Center, noted that when Congress returns it will consider a bill to cut $35 million from Medicaid, food stamps, student aid and other essential services. Congress will also consider cutting $70 billion in taxes that will primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations.

"Although the numbers of uninsured continued to grow, increases would have been much worse for both women and men were it not for the Medicaid program," Waxman said. "Yet Congress is poised to cut this vital program that has provided access to needed health care services for working and low-income Americans."

Insured Ranks Increase

Meanwhile, the bureau found that the number of insured grew over the last year. In 2004, the number of people with health insurance increased by 2 million to 245.3 million (84.3 percent of the population).

Of the groups in the survey, Hispanics had the highest percentage rate of uninsured with 32.7 percent--the same as 2003. Uninsured rates for blacks stayed the same at 19.7 percent, and the percent of non-Hispanic Whites without coverage remained at 11.3 percent. Asians saw their numbers of uninsured drop by 2 percent to 16.8 percent of the population in 2004.

In the 12-year-period from 1987 (the first year comparable coverage statistics are available) to 1998, the historical record shows that the uninsured rate either increased or remained the same from one year to the next.

The rate peaked at 16.3 percent in 1998, and then the rate fell for two straight years to 14.2 percent in 2000. For the next three years, the rate increased before it stabilized at 15.7 percent, the bureau found.