Census Revises Estimates of the Number of Uninsured People

Publication Date: April 2007

Publisher: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Leighton Ku

Research Area:

Keywords: Health insurance; Economic projections

Type: Report

Abstract:

On March 23, the Census Bureau announced that it has revised estimates of the number of uninsured people for 2004 and 2005, after it detected an error in how data from its CurrentPopulation Survey have been tabulated. The number and percentage of people who were uninsured in 2005 changed from 46.6 million (15.9 percent of the population) to 44.8 million (15.3 percent). The Bureau also stated that the same error occurred in previous years and “the effect of the revision is relatively constant from one year to the next,” so that there is little impact on trends in insurance coverage.