Study: 26% of Americans Had Health Insurance Gap Last Year

So much for Obamacare:

As common Americans wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of health care reform laws, a new study was released that shows that a large minority of Americans had a gap in their coverage in 2011. According to the Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Tracking Survey of U.S. Adults, the equivalent of 48 million Americans were uninsured at some point during 2011.

The primary driving factors in the gap in health insurance was causes by losses or changes in jobs of either the individual or the spouse. The survey includes 2,100 adults in the United States from the ages of 19 to 64.

Of the people who reported a health insurance gap, 69% said that they did not have insurance for more than a year, while 57% reported that they didn't have health insurance for more than two years. The survey found that almost 50% of those who tried to get insurance over the last three years did not purchase a plan on the individual insurance market. Nearly two-thirds of them reported that the premiums were too expensive, while one-third reported that they were turned down for insurance, had prices raised or were excluded for a pre-existing condition.

Source