Connecticut’s state-sponsored health plan for uninsured kids and their families has kept them covered at a time when the ranks of uninsured American adults are rising, a family advocacy group says.
Connecticut Voices for Children said without the state’s HUSKY health insurance program, more adults and children likely would be included in the U.S. Census Bureau’s biennial count of the growing ranks of the state’s uninsured.
“As families struggle through difficult economic times and fewer have access to health insurance through their jobs, we need to support health insurance programs that work, like HUSKY,” said Mary Alice Lee, senior policy fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children (CVC). “We need to expand our state and national efforts to make sure that adults have the health insurance they need.”
According to CVC, citing census data, more working-age Connecticut residents lack employer-sponsored health insurance than four years ago, but the number of children without coverage is about the same.
There were 12.6 percent of the state’s population under age 65 who were without health insurance in 2008-2009, up from 10.7 percent in 2006-2007, the bureau says.
Connecticut is on pace with the rest of the nation, the data shows.
Nationally, uninsured working-age Americans under 65 rose in 2009 to 18.8 percent from 17.3 percent in 2008, data shows.
Among American children, 10 percent (7.5 million) were uninsured in 2009, a rate that was not significantly different from the 2008 rate of 9.9 percent.Â
In addition, the percentage of Americans under age 65 with employer-sponsored health insurance coverage significantly decreased from 61.9 percent in 2008 to 58.9 percent in 2009 (156.5 million).
