Regional Characteristics of the Uninsured: 2009 to 2012 ACS Data

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According to a new Gallup survey, the percentage of Americans without health insurance is on track to reach its lowest quarterly rate since 2008. The results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey Jan. 2-Feb. 28, 2014, with a random sample of 28,396 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Based on this survey, the uninsured rate has fallen to 15.9 percent, Gallup reports. By comparison, the uninsured rate in the fourth quarter of 2013 was 17.1 percent. If accurate, that translates to a difference of about 2.5 million adult Americans. The survey's margin of error was one percent.

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The survey shows that the uninsured rate has dropped for almost every major demographic group so far this year. The rate has fallen the most -- 2.8 percent, to 27.9 percent -- among uninsured Americans with an annual household income of less than $36,000 a year. Hispanics remain the subgroup most likely to be uninsured, at the rate of 37.9 percent.

Local uninsured data appears below. It has been gathered from the 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 American Communities Surveys and put together to allow a comparison of the region's uninsured population over the last several years.

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Please note that the margins of error, NOT SHOWN HERE, can be rather large in some cases, especially when looking at data broken down into smaller and smaller subgroups. So wild swings in the percent uninsured from year to year for some relatively smaller sub-populations are not necessarily meaningful nor significant !

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