A new WalletHub survey of U.S. cities with the highest number of residents without health insurance coverage includes a handful of municipalities in Westchester and Fairfield counties.
WalletHub measured the uninsured rates for 548 U.S. cities in three categories based on population: large, mid-sized and small.
No Westchester or Fairfield County cities showed up on the list ranking large cities by the number of uninsured, but the list of mid-sized cities found Yonkers ranked 49th, Stamford 129th and Bridgeport 216th. On the list of small cities, Mount Vernon was 51st and New Rochelle ranked 134th.
Ranked at the top of the large city list with the fewest uninsured was Washington, D.C., with Dallas at the bottom. The mid-sized city with the lowest number of uninsured was Highlands Ranch, Colorado, while the most uninsured were to be found in Brownsville, Texas. Newton, Massachusetts had the lowest number of uninsured among small cities, while Pharr, Texas, had the most.
Not all U.S. cities were included in the study.
The survey reported that, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the national uninsured rate rose in 2018 to 8.5% from 7.9% in 2017 — the first year there was an increase since the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, took effect.
Among the 296.2 million people covered at any point during 2018, 96.4% had health insurance coverage for all 12 months. For the year, 27.5 million did not have health insurance at any point, up from 25.6 million in 2017.
In 2018, private health insurance coverage continued to be more prevalent than public coverage, covering 67.3% of the population versus 34.4%. Of the subtypes of health insurance coverage, employer-based insurance remained the most common, covering 55.1% of the population for all or part of the calendar year.
The percentage of people with health insurance coverage for all or part of 2018 was 91.5%, lower than the rate of 92.1% in 2017. Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of people covered by Medicaid decreased 0.7% to 17.9%. The rate of Medicare coverage increased by 0.4%.
The percentage of people with employment-based coverage, direct-purchase coverage, Veterans Administration and similar coverage did not statistically change between 2017 and 2018.
The percentage of uninsured children under the age of 19 increased by 0.6% between 2017 and 2018, to 5.5 percent.
