CMS Outlines Demographics of the Uninsured

While CMS gears up to enroll the 48.4 million uninsured Americans, almost one in five, into the health insurance exchanges by this fall in accordance with the health law, the federal agency released a brief (pdf) to help inform stakeholders target populations most likely to be uninsured by demographic, geographic and psychographic categories.

About half of the uninsured population is healthy now and see little reason to buy costly insurance. One-third are sick and worried they don't have coverage, which is currently very expensive on the individual markets for those with pre-existing conditions. The third largest group, comprising 15 percent of the uninsured, is older but uninformed and unengaged about acquiring health insurance.

Racially, 44.8 percent of the uninsured are white, 32.4 percent are Latino and 14.9 percent are black. On income, 54.5 percent earn less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level and would qualify for the expanded Medicaid criteria in states that adopt it, and 38.2 percent earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or $94,200 for a family of four, qualifying them for other insurance subsidies via the exchanges.

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