A new survey by the Gallup Organization reveals that minorities in particular face a difficult time paying for their healthcare needs. Half of them reported that during the course of the past year, they did not have enough money to pay for their medical bills.
Recently, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reported that approximately 43.6 million (14.8%) Americans did not have any health insurance in 2006. During the course of this year, 54.5 million (18.6%) also reported that they had been without insurance at least ounce in 2006 with 30.7 million (10.5%) stating that they had been without insurance for more than a year at the time of the survey. This new Gallup survey appears to corroborate many of these findings.
The report was part of Gallup’s Minority Rights and Relations survey and was conducted via telephone interviews between June 4th and June 24th, 2007. It included 2,388 adults over the age of 18 nationwide. Specifically, this survey included 868 Whites (non-Hispanic), 802 Blacks, and 502 Hispanics. Gallup analysts included over-samples of blacks and Hispanics in an effort to ensure that the poll reflected the proportions of these minority populations in the United States. Approximately, one-quarter (138/502) of the interviews with Hispanics were in Spanish.
Gallup asked survey participants if there had been times during the last year when they did not have enough money to pay for medical or healthcare expenses. In this respect, 32% of Americans were unable to pay for their basic healthcare needs during the course of the preceding year. This was the highest percentage reported in the 31 years that Gallup has been conducting this survey. Back in 1976, only 15% said that they did not have enough money to meet their healthcare requirements.
Racial and ethnic background was a major factor in determining if healthcare expenses could be covered. Almost half of all Hispanics (48%) said that they were unable to pay for their medical bills during the past year. Forty-five percent of African-Americans replied that they had trouble covering their medical expenses in the past 12 months with about a quarter (26%) of whites stating that they also did not have enough money to cover their healthcare needs in the preceeding year.
Gallup analysts also reported that during the past three years, there has been a consistent 20 point percentage gap between whites and minorities with respect to paying for healthcare services.
Lower income and lack of education was intimately associated with an inability to pay for medical costs. According to the report, 40% of respondents with high school or less said that they were unable to meet their healthcare expenses in the past year. Similarly, more than half (54%) of survey participants making less than $20,000 annually stated that they had difficulty paying their medical bills as opposed to 12% of respondents who made $75,000 or more that stated that they struggled to financially cover their personal medical expenses.
These numbers appear to corroborate findings from a recent U.S. census bureau that reported that 24.2% of Americans that make less than $25,000 each year, do not have any specific health insurance. That same report found that 1 in 5 Americans that make between $25,000 and $50,000 also did not have insurance to cover their basic healthcare needs.
Sources: Gallup Poll News Service: http://www.galluppoll.com/content/Default.aspx?ci=28138&VERSION=p
CDC reports: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur200706.pdf
U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/usernote/table3usernote.xls
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