More Americans Have Insurance, Census Reports

In another demonstration of the robust economy, the Census Bureau reported Thursday that the percentage of Americans without health insurance declined last year, the first drop since the government began keeping the statistic 13 years ago.

Most people with health insurance get it through employment, either directly as employees or indirectly as spouses and children. The ongoing business boom is creating more jobs, and employers are finding that they need to offer benefits such as health insurance to attract workers in a tight labor market, analysts indicated.

The census reported that 15.5% of Americans were uninsured in 1999, down from 16.3% the previous year. Each year since 1987, the share of the population without coverage had risen or remained the same.

The count of the uninsured was 42.7 million, down 1.7 million from 1998.

Although the percentage of uninsured Californians also dropped, the state still had one of the highest rates in the country--20.3%, down from 22.1% in 1998.

The only states with a greater percentage of uninsured were New Mexico, 25.8%; Texas, 23.3%; Louisiana, 22.5%; Arizona, 21.2%; and Nevada, 20.7%.