One in Five Californians Has No Health Insurance

Published: Fri 30 Jul 2010

Wendy Blair

Census data released this week show that a fifth of California residents-about 6.5 million people-did not have health insurance in 2007.

The figures reveal the highest rates of Californians without medical insurance were in rural Mono, Monterey, and Colusa counties. The counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, on the other hand, have some of the lowest rates of people without health insurance in the state.

The Small Area Health Insurance Estimates, which examined every county in the country, discovered than 20.2 percent of California residents lacked health insurance in 2007.

Nationwide, California ranks eighth for the highest number of uninsured. Texas has the country's highest rate at 26.8 percent, closely followed by New Mexico at 26.7 percent, and Florida at 24.2 percent.

The 2007 figures are not accurate depictions of today's health insurance climate, as they fail to account for the recession and widespread unemployment.