A human rights report has revealed that about 47 million people in the United States were not covered by health insurance, quoting statistics released by the US Census Bureau.
The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007 was released by the Information Office of the State Council on Thursday, which has been prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States.
The report said people without health insurance have been increasing in the United States. More than 10 million young people aged 19-29 were not covered.
A US family organization said nearly 90 million people below the age of 65 were not covered by health insurance at one point or throughout the period from 2006 to 2007 and the number accounted for 34.7 percent of the population falling in that age, the report said.
In Texas, the rate of uninsured people was 23.8 percent. In Arizona it was 20.6 percent. It was 19.7 percent for Florida and 19 percent for Georgia, the report quoted stories by Ming Pao San Francisco Edition as saying.
In 2006, health insurance premiums rose 7.7 percent from a year ago, hitting 11,480 US dollars for a typical US family plan offered by employers.
The percentage of people covered by job-based health insurance fell 0.3 percentage points to 59.7 percent, it said.
Meanwhile, the number of people whose household incomes were above the poverty line but were unable to afford medical services rose from 4.2 percent of the total population in 1998 to 5.8 percent in 2006, it quoted Ming Pao San Francisco Edition as saying.
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2008)
