WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The ranks of America's uninsured rose by about 6 million from 2000 to 2004, a health group said Friday.
According to the report -- by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured -- there were more than 45 million people under age 65 in the United States without health insurance in 2004, representing a 800,000-person leap in one year and an increase of about 6 million since 2004.
In fact, there is now a U.S. coverage gap "so large that 18 (percent) of the population under age 65 lacks health insurance," the report said.
The report also found that being employed does not guarantee that a worker will have insurance, and that the uninsured come primarily from working families with low and moderate incomes, families for whom coverage is not available in the workplace, or is unaffordable.
