Truth, Lies and In Between

Let’s look at the numbers again.

A Closer Look at the Uninsured
Why the “46 million” figure is profoundly misleading.
By Duncan Currie

The American health-care debate is a blizzard of numbers, but few get tossed around as frequently as “46 million.” According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), that’s roughly how many people (the more precise figure was 45.7 million) lacked health insurance at a given moment in 2007 — nearly one-sixth of the entire U.S. population. The latest CPS data show that 46.3 million were uninsured at a given moment in 2008.

Yet while it carries superficial appeal as a political talking point, the “46 million” statistic tells us nothing about the demographics of America’s uninsured. Economist Keith Hennessey, director of the National Economic Council under Pres. George W. Bush, has examined the 2007 data and sliced the 45.7 million uninsured into several distinct clusters, basing his estimates on an earlier government analysis, conducted in 2005. Hennessey reckons that 6.4 million were enrolled in Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — now known just as the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — but misreported their status (a phenomenon known as the “Medicaid undercount”); 4.3 million were eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled; 9.3 million were noncitizens; 10.1 million belonged to families earning more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL); and 5 million were childless adults aged 18 to 34. If we eliminate those individuals from the original 45.7 million, we are left with about 10.6 million.

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