Survey: Health insurance market left out 55million Americans in 2012
More than 40 percent of U.S. residents went without health insurance or had coverage that didn't protect them against high medical costs last year, survey results released Friday reveal.
Thirty percent of people in the U.S., or 55 million, were uninsured for at least part of the year prior to the survey, which was conducted from April to August 2012 for the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based research organization. Another 30 million people, or 16 percent of the population, were "underinsured," meaning their health plans offered too little coverage and exposed them to high out-of-pocket costs, the survey found.
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</center> People earning up to four times the federal poverty level, which is $11,490 for an individual this year, were the most likely to be uninsured or underinsured. The lower the income, the more common uninsurance or underinsurance was, according to the survey:
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</center> Lower-income and uninsured people reported the most problems accessing medical care they needed because of cost:
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</center>And said they faced financial hardships as a consequence of having little or no health insurance coverage protecting them from high expenses, leading in some cases to debts, exhausted savings and damaged credit ratings:
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