Grantmakers in the News

Throughout the United States, a significant gap exists between the amount of health care accessed by people who have health insurance and those who don't, a new report from the Princeton, New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds.

According to the report, The Coverage Gap: A State-by-State Report on Access to Care, uninsured adults are nearly four times more likely not to see a doctor when they need to than people who have health coverage. What's more, the disparities in health care coverage are taking a toll on millions of Americans, with a far greater percentage of uninsured adults reporting they are in poor or fair health than adults who have insurance.

In addition, despite the popular notion that the uninsured are overwhelmingly young and healthy, the report found that an increasing number of Americans over age 50 are finding themselves without healthcare coverage. According to the most recent government data, about one in six adults between the ages of 50 and 64, or about 7 million people, are uninsured.

In three separate two-year durations (1993-94, 1998-99, and 2003-04), the two-year average rates of uninsured adults ages 50-64 were consistently higher in Southern states, compared to other regions in the U.S. and to the nation as a whole.

"This report gives a warning to our state and national leaders by showing that our neighbors, friends, and relatives without health coverage live sicker, and will likely die younger, than those who have insurance," said RWJF president and CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. "When insured people get sick, they go to the doctor and they get better. When women with insurance are in their forties, they start getting mammograms regularly. But for people without health coverage, it's a different world. They cannot access basic care or diagnostic screenings because of the cost, so their minor illnesses become major ones."

To read or download the complete report (27 pages, PDF), visit: http://www.rwjf.org/files/newsroom/CoverageGap0406.pdf.