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THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON November 13, 1998 INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT me FROM: Chris Jennings and Jeanne Lambrew THROUGH: Bruce Reed, Gene Sperling SUBJECT: Recent Uninsured Trends and Analyses As you know, the Census Bureau recently estimated that 43.7 million Americans are uninsured -- an increase of 1.7 million from 1996 and nearly 5 million from 1992. Insurance coverage is one of the few social indicators that has not improved in the last several years. This contradicts the theory that a strong economy with low unemployment yields a high demand for workers, and thus better benefits like health insurance. It is even more disappointing given record-low health care cost growth in Rate of Uninsured Among the the last several years, which should make insurance more Non-Bderly, 1987-1997 20% 17.3% 17.4% 18.3% 14.8% 15.7% 16.3% affordable and thus more common. This increase has 15% important consequences since the uninsured are four times more likely to not receive needed health care, have 10% hospitalization rates for preventable conditions that are 50 5% to 75 percent higher, and place growing uncompensated 0% 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 care burdens on the nation's providers. Sarce: EBRI, 1998 Because of the importance of this problem and your expressed interest in these data, we are providing you an analysis of the numbers and recent insurance coverage trends, as well as a summary of their policy implications. Uninsured by age: Most of the uninsured in America are young; over 80 percent are under age 45 (35.2 million). These uninsured are disproportionately ages 18 to 24 -- 30 percent of whom are uninsured compared to 15 percent of children. The number of uninsured children did not increase in 1997, remaining at 10.7 million. This contrasts dramatically with last year's data that showed that 800,000 of the 1.1 million additional people who were uninsured were children. The change appears to be the result of the unprecedented focus on Rate of Uninsured by Age, 1997 children's health in 1997. Beginning with the State of the 30% Union and ending with the establishment of your Children's 30% 23% Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Federal Government 17% 20% 15% 14% 14% and the states started taking actions to address this serious problem. Next year, after Census' data reflects a full year's 10% <1% operation of CHIP, we would expect the number of 0% uninsured children to fall. <18 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+