Americans' health insurance coverage, 1980-91

The authors of this article have used Current Population Surveys to summarize public and private health insurance trends in the United States over the last 12 years. Key findings include the declining percentage of the non-elderly population with employer-sponsored coverage and increasing numbers of low- and middle-income uninsured. That is, in a period of fast-rising health care costs, the poor and the near-poor in working families have been losing coverage for health care and facing increasing risks of inadequate care and financial loss. These data highlight health care access and financing problems now facing the Nation.