According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 43.6 million Americans, including 8.5 million children, were without health insurance in 2002.

However, the statistics indicate most spells without coverage were relatively brief, as 74.7 percent of the uninsured found coverage within a year.

Still, the total number of uninsured increased by 2.4 million from 2001, largely due to a drop in the number of people covered by employment-based insurance &045;&045; down from 62.6 percent to 61.3 percent.

Testifying in March before the House of Representatives Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, economist Len Nichols, Ph.D., said income is the key for the uninsured.

&uot;The single most important reason people are uninsured in this country is they are not willing to pay what it costs to insure themselves, and their unwillingness to pay is highly but not perfectly correlated with low income,&uot; said Nichols, who serves as vice-president of the Center for Studying Health System Change.

Census figures showed 82 percent of workers 18 to 64 had insurance, while only 74.3 percent of non-workers were covered. And only 52.6 percent of workers with incomes below the poverty level were covered.

Nichols said government must be willing to intervene to make insurance more affordable for low-income groups.

&uot;If policy makers really want to increase coverage, they’re going to have to subsidize people, probably quite substantially, since most of the uninsured have incomes below twice-times poverty,&uot; Nichols said.

Government health insurance programs such as Medicaid and Medicare covered 11.6 percent of the population in 2002, according to the Census Bureau.

Hispanics were least likely among racial groups to have health insurance.

Only 67.6 percent of Hispanics were covered, compared to 89.3 percent of whites and 79.8 percent of blacks.

The Census Bureau also noted that young adults were less likely than other age groups to have health insurance.

Among age groups, only 70.4 percent of 18 to 24 year-olds were covered. The number with insurance rose to 82.3 percent for those 25 to 64, and 99.2 percent for seniors 65 and older.

A 2001 study by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association found Texas, New Mexico and California had the highest rates of uninsured. Between 20 and 25 percent of residents in those states had no insurance.

The BCBS study said 459,000 Mississippians were without insurance, compared to 845,000 in Louisiana. Mississippi and Louisiana were among 13 states, including New York and Florida, where 15 to 19 percent of the population had no health insurance.

But a survey of over 10,000 households last year by the Louisiana State University Public Policy Research Lab found one in five adults and one in ten children without health insurance.

Demographics of the uninsured in Louisiana mirror the general population: 80 percent have a high school diploma; 55 percent are women; and 65 percent are white.

The majority of adults without insurance in Louisiana are employed, and the rate of uninsured is highest among the hotel and construction industries, the survey said.

The survey also noted that about half of the uninsured children are probably eligible either for Medicaid or the Louisiana Children’s Health Insurance Program, but are not enrolled.

In Mississippi, approximately 85,000 uninsured children ages birth to 19 are believed to be eligible for coverage under Phase II of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, according to the state’s Department of Health.

Another 15,000 uninsured children ages 15 to 19 in Mississippi would qualify for coverage under CHIP Phase I.

CHIP insurance is free for families with incomes less than 150 percent of federal poverty scale.

For families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty scale, there is a co-payment for expenses up to five percent of income. After the five percent co-payment is met, the plan is free for the remainder of year.