By Tara Mancini

Yesterday the Census Bureau released the 2011 Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE), which provides uninsured and insured rates for all counties in the U.S. The estimates combine data from the American Community Survey (ACS) with population estimates and other administrative data and are great for examining the geographic variation within and between states. Here are some highlights from the SAHIE.

As we know, Medicaid and CHIP have continued to strengthen coverage for children over the years, keeping their uninsured rate low even as employer-sponsored insurance continues to decline. Figure 1 (below) from the brief illustrates this point well, showing the stark contrast between uninsured working age adults (18-64) and uninsured children under age 19. A sizeable number of counties in the South and West have uninsured rates above 25% for the former, while only a handful of counties (which is still too many) have children uninsured at that rate. Additionally,  in 70.5% of the nation’s counties children had uninsured rates below 10%, whereas adults aged 18-64 had uninsured rates below 10% in only 1.6% of counties.

Another point of interest is the data on uninsured rates for the population under age 65 living at or below 138% FPL. The state estimates (Figure 3, page 6) indicate that 22 states, mostly in the Southern and the Western regions of the US, have uninsured rates above 30%. Counties with high levels of uninsured below 138% (Figure 11, page 19) are mostly located within the aforementioned states. These are the adults that would benefit most directly from their states accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid – yet many of them are not doing so yet.

Most of the data in the brief uses the population under age 65, but you can access mores state specific estimates for children or the working age by using the SAHIE interactive data tool.

As a reminder the Census Bureau will be releasing the 2012 one-year estimates for American Community Survey (ACS) on September 19, 2013. We use the ACS for our annual brief on children’s coverage