1 Million Among Middle Class Lost Health Benefits Last Year

One million Americans earning $25,000 to $50,000 lost their health insurance last year, according to a study of census figures released Monday by two groups pushing for universal health care.

Most of the newly uninsured were men, said Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program.

The figures demonstrate that the health insurance problem is not just a problem of the poor, Woolhandler said.

The racial makeup of the newly uninsured population changed in 1991, the report said. Non-Latino whites accounted for 77% of the increase in the number of uninsured in 1990 but only for 26% of the increase in 1991.

Blacks represented 19% of the increase in 1990 but 57% of the jump in the newly uninsured in 1991.

Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said many people who used to have health insurance dropped it because premium costs became too high.

Many others in the middle-income group lost jobs that had supplied health insurance, Woolhandler said.

The study showed that nearly 90% of the rise in the number of uninsured in 1991 was concentrated in Texas, Indiana, Florida, North Carolina and Massachusetts, but the data did not offer any reason for this concentration.

The number of middle-income Americans who lost their health insurance in 1991 was partially offset by an increase of insured in higher-income groups, making a total 726,000 newly uninsured during the year, according to the study.

The total number of uninsured Americans has been growing every year to 35.4 million in 1991, the study said.

As people drop their private health insurance, Medicaid rolls expand. In 1991, about 2.6 million people started getting Medicaid coverage for the first time, according to the study.