With the future of the health care law emerging as a major campaign issue this fall, a new survey has found that more than a quarter of adults ages 19 to 64 in the United States lacked health insurance for at least some time in 2011.
The vast majority of those people, nearly 70 percent, also had been without coverage for more than a year, partly because plans sold on the individual market were unaffordable, according to the study by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit organization that analyzes health care issues.
The study, which polled 2,100 people, found that the percentage without insurance equals about 48 million people when measured against U.S. Census data. The results have a 3 percentage point margin of error.
Research, including the Commonwealth Fund survey, indicates that people without health insurance often skip needed medical care and do not get vital preventive services such as cancer screenings.
According to the survey, 74 percent of women ages 40 to 64 with health insurance had received a mammogram in the previous two years. In contrast, just 28 percent of women in that age group who had been without insurance for a year or more received a mammogram.
The Commonwealth Fund said more than 40 percent of those who lost insurance had been covered by employer-sponsored plans. An additional 18 percent were dropped from Medicaid rolls, and 27 percent had never been insured.
Employer-provided insurance is a main pillar of the U.S. health care market, covering the health care needs of about 150 million nonelderly people. Employer coverage has become increasingly expensive in recent years, prompting many companies to reduce benefits or raise costs for their workers.
The results provide a snapshot of the $2.6 trillion U.S. health care system at a time when government officials are wrestling with stubbornly high unemployment rates and uncertainty about the future of the federal health care overhaul.
The law would seek to close gaps in health insurance beginning in 2014 by extending coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans, either by subsidized state insurance markets or an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor.
The law could be overturned by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds before the end of June. It also faces repeated calls for repeal from Republican candidates running in this year's election campaign.
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