Kaiser Releases New Fact Sheets on Women’s Health Insurance Coverage

By Christine Cupaiuolo — February 5, 2007

To document the health coverage status of women, the Kaiser Family Foundation has released new fact sheets providing state and national data on women’s health insurance.

This fact sheet provides state-by-state data on the uninsured rate, as well as rates of private insurance coverage and Medicaid coverage.

This fact sheet describes the major sources of health insurance coverage for women ages 18-64, including employer-sponsored insurance and Medicaid, and includes data on the more than 17 million uninsured women.

“As the cost of health insurance continues to rise, women in particular may face difficult challenges affording coverage because they are disproportionately low-income and can have more limited access to employer-based insurance,” according to Kaiser.

Here are some highlights:

* Nationally, one in five (19 percent) non-elderly women ages 18 to 64 are uninsured. Among the states, Minnesota has the smallest share of uninsured women (9 percent) and Texas, the highest (29 percent).

* One third (34 percent) of women 18 to 64 in the U.S. have incomes less than 200 percent of poverty ($31,154 for a family of three) and 37 percent of low-income women are uninsured.

* Approximately two-thirds of women and men have job-based coverage, however, women are less likely than men to be insured through their own job (38 percent vs. 50 percent, respectively) and more likely to have dependent coverage (24 percent vs. 13 percent).

* Medicaid, the health program for the poor, covers 10 percent of non-elderly women in the U.S. In Maine, 20 percent of women are covered by Medicaid, compared to just 3 percent in neighboring New Hampshire.

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