This report from the U.S. Census Bureau presents data on health insurance coverage in the United States in 2014 based on data collected in the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) and the American Community Survey (ACS). Data from the CPS ASEC indicates that the percentage of the U.S. population who did not health insurance coverage during the entire year, changed from 13.3 percent in 2013 to 10.4 percent in 2014, a decrease of 2.9 percent. This means that the number of uninsured Americans declined from 41.8 million to 33.0 million in the one-year period.
Between 2013 and 2014, the increase in the percentage of the population covered by health insurance was due to an increase in the rates of both private and government coverage. The rate of private coverage increased by 1.8 percentage points to 66.0 percent in 2014, and the government coverage rate increased by 2.0 percentage points to 36.5 percent. Of the types of health insurance, employment-based insurance covered the most people (55.4 percent of the population), followed by Medicaid (19.5 percent), Medicare (16.0 percent), direct-purchase (14.6 percent) and military health care (4.5 percent).
Between 2013 and 2014, the overall rate of health insurance coverage increased for all race and Hispanic origin groups. However, the increase in coverage for blacks, Asians and Hispanics (just over 4.0 percentage points) was nearly twice that for non-Hispanic whites (2.1 percentage points).
In 2014, the state with the lowest percentage of residents without health insurance at the time of the survey was Massachusetts (3.3 percent), while the highest uninsured rate was for residents of Texas (19.1 percent).
Ignatius Bau 