Medicare-for-all would keep everyone covered

The number of uninsured Americans has jumped by 2.2 million to 47 million. This rise in the number of people without health insurance is the biggest jump reported by the Census Bureau since 1992. There are now more uninsured people in the United States than at any time since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the mid-1960s.

Middle-Class Americans Join Ranks of Uninsured in 2006 as Private Coverage Shrinks

The U.S. Census Bureau released data today showing that the number of uninsured Americans jumped by 2.2 million in 2006 to 47.0 million people, with nearly all the increase (2.03 million) concentrated among middle-class Americans earning over $50,000 per year, according to an analysis by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Strikingly, 1.4 million of the newly uninsured were in families making over $75,000 per year. An additional 600,000 were in families earning $50,000 to $75,000 per year. (The median household income in 2006 was $48,200).
"Middle income Americans are now experiencing the human suffering that comes with being uninsured. It makes any illness a potential economic and social catastrophe," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.