Where You Live May Make A Difference On Health Insurance Coverage

As surprising as it may sound to most Americans, where you live may actually determine what sort of health insurance you have – if you have any at all.

According to recent census data, there is a geographical disparity in the numbers of uninsured resulting from a particular area or regions local laws, population makeup, and job markets. For instance, a majority of residents living in the Southwest are more likely to have no coverage than in places such as the upper Midwest and the Northeast.

The entire system is fragmented. It lacks the kind of strong infrastructure that would even out the issues and provide equal insurance coverage. Among the 435 congressional districts in the U.S., those in Texas have the highest percentage of uninsured residents.

At the opposite end, Massachusetts had the smaller percentage of uninsured of those tallied in its congressional districts. (This may be due to the state’s mandated universal health care program, which was established in 2006.)

In places like Houston, 40.1% of the population is uninsured. In Worcester, Massachusetts, it was only 3.4% of the resident population. In between, the two extremes a number areas show distinctive numbers. In populous centers like San Francisco, 11% were uninsured. The number was more like 15% in certain districts of South Carolina.

Next to Massachusetts, the states with the least uninsured residents were Hawaii (6.7 percent), Minnesota (8.7 percent) and Connecticut (9 percent).

Behind Texas, the states with the largest percentage of uninsured residents were New Mexico (21.4 percent), Nevada (21.3 percent) and Florida (20.8 percent).

Overcoming the obstacles imposed by such wide-ranging factors and the local bureaucracies of several states may prove nearly impossible. Still, it is an area of investigation that will be exploited from every angle in order to come up with viable programs that would give millions more Americans the chance at reasonable health insurance coverage, regardless of what part of the country they live in.