You may be asking yourself what the bottom line is as far as the uninsured individuals and families in the United States goes? And this is a very logical question and one that mostly seems to be inaccurately reported.

Those who want the Nationalized Health Care plan will tend to overstate the number of uninsured in the U.S., while those who are opposed to this health care plan will tend to say that the facts stated are over inflated and that much less of the population is without insurance because they can’t afford it.

These are the facts, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.

• It is estimated according to the 2007 census that during that time frame a little less than 46 million Americans were without health insurance coverage for part or all of that year. The important thing to realize is that these 2007 figures only provide us with some insight as to what the insurance situation was like before all the job losses in 2008 and 2009. Very conveniently for the government by the time we get these statistics they are already out of date. It can however be inferred that there were many more American’s without health insurance during 2008 and still more in 2009, allowing us to gain perspective on the crisis we face.
• Of the uninsured in this country, about 26% are actually eligible for some sort of public assistance but they don’t use it. Some do this out of choice, but there are many people out there who don’t realize that this is an option for insuring themselves and their families.
• About 21% of the people in the U.S. that are uninsured are immigrants, but this figure includes both those who are here legally and illegally. It is unknown how many of this 21% have legal status.
• According to the Census Bureau, 20% of the uninsured in this country have a combined family income greater than $75,000. This however does not mean that they are eligible for insurance coverage. Since many higher paying jobs don’t offer insurance and not everyone who applies for private insurance gets it. It is unknown as to the eligibility of this 20% to obtain private health insurance. Also, family size must be considered a factor as well.
• It is estimated that 40% of those who are uninsured consider themselves to be young and in good health. Many in this group pass on insurance because it is either not available to them or because they consider themselves in good enough health not to be in need of insurance. Reports show that many of those who pass on health insurance coverage because they are in such good health are actually in worse health than those that have insurance coverage.

It is important to note that although these are statistics, they are self reported and so the accuracy is probably not right on, but more of a general overview of those American’s living without insurance. The government feels that this figure includes many middle class people and immigrants who are just opting out of purchasing health insurance, and they claim that this figure is about half. Although, it is hard to believe that they would forgo paying for such a valuable service if they in fact had enough money to do so. This just really doesn’t make much sense, but the government often uses this excuse as a way to downplay the figures which by the way get larger every year despite some efforts on the behalf of the government to create health insurance coverage for those low to middle class children, which should actually have made a significant drop in the number of uninsured, but hasn’t to date.