A study based on Census Bureau data and released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Families USA reveals that the true extent of the health-care crisis in America is even worse than the bleak picture already being painted (see WIT's for Jan. 20 and 14, 2003, Sep. 6 and March 28, 2002, and Sep. 7, 2001). Not only were almost one-third of young and middle-aged Americans uninsured at some point during the past two years, over sixty percent of the 75 million people who went without insurance did so for at least half a year, and twenty-five percent were uninsured for the entire period. Perhaps the most disturbing finding in the study was the fact that just under eighty percent of the non-elderly Americans who lacked health insurance at some point during 2001 and 2002 were workers, or had at least one parent who worked.
See VICKI KEMPER, Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2003