CDC: 59 Million Americans Don’t Have Health Insurance

From Slate –

Over 59 million Americans lacked health insurance for some part of 2010, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds—a 4 million-person increase from 2008.

The study examined 90,000 people from over 35,000 households across the country and found that the number of uninsured had steadily increased over the past two years, as did the number of people who had gone more than a year without coverage. While the number of children without insurance dropped five percent between 2008 and 2009, “both adults and kids lost private coverage over the past decade,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Frieden added that the study also exploded two myths about health care: that only poor or healthy people lack insurance. “In fact, half of the uninsured are over the poverty level and one in three adults under 65 in the middle income range,” Freiden said of wealth, and about health, “more than two out of five individuals who are uninsured at some point during the past year had one or more chronic diseases.”

The report is expected to invigorate debate about health care reform, which some key Republicans, including Republican House Speaker in waiting John Boehner, have pledged to repeal. However, while a full repeal would prove difficult—Ezra Klein goes into why on his blog this morning—others have promised to pursue althernate tactics, such as defunding key reforms.