Massachusetts leads the nation with its high percentage of residents with health insurance according to the latest data released by the Census Bureau.

• The Census Bureau estimates that 7.9 percent of the Commonwealth’s population did not have health insurance during the 2006-2007 period. This is a 2.4 percentage point drop from the rate in 2004-2005. The national uninsurance rate was 15.5 percent in 2006-2007.

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• The Census Bureau estimates an average of 498,500 persons without health insurance in Massachusetts during the 2006-2007 period. It is important to remember that this average includes an estimate from both 2006 prior to the implementation of the state’s health reform initiative, as well as estimates from 2007 once health reform was under way. It is likely that the next year’s Census Bureau estimates will show an even greater decline in the rate of uninsured.
  


• Massachusetts was one of fifteen states that showed a statistically significant change in the rate of uninsured, and was one of only five states that showed an improvement in the number of people with health insurance. In most states, the percentage of the population without health insurance increased.

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• In 2007, the Census Bureau estimates that 45.7 million people went without health insurance in the United States, down from about 47.0 million in 2006. This represents a drop from 15.8 percent of the population without health insurance in 2006 to 15.3 percent without health insurance in 2007.
  



• Massachusetts is one of 32 states with health insurance rates better than the U.S. as a whole. The highest uninsurance rate is in Texas, where close to one in four residents is without health insurance.

The Census Bureau estimates are different from the single-year estimates released last week by the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, but show exactly the same trend. The state survey estimated that the uninsurance rate in Massachusetts in 2007 was 5.7 percent, or 355,000 persons, down from 6.4 percent in 2006. This estimate is from 2007 only (rather than the Census Bureau’s use of a two-year average).

The state survey has advantages over the Census Bureau numbers. It surveys a larger sample, and is therefore more likely to generate an accurate estimate, and its primary focus is on health insurance coverage.

On the other hand, the Census Bureau data are the only reliable sources for comparisons across states, and can be the best source for information about long-term trends. Even so, the Census Bureau has itself changed its survey methodology, so that certain comparisons across years have only limited reliability.