10 percent of state lacks medical insurance

Connecticut has among 10 best rates in the nation for residents having health insurance, a new U.S. Census Bureau report shows. The report relied on a three-year average of data between 2003 and 2006.

The Census Bureau estimates that 362,000 people in the state lacked health insurance on average during the three-year period, about 10.4 percent of the state population.

The state has slipped this decade however, warned Connecticut Voices for Children, which published Census Bureau data suggesting the number of uninsured residents in the state had crept up by nearly a full percentage point since 2000. The New Haven organization cautioned that year-to-year comparisons can be misleading since the figures are extrapolated from Census Bureau estimates.

Minnesota had the best rate in the nation at 8.5 percent, while Texas had the highest percentage of uninsured at 24.1 percent.