Central Texas Medical Foundation

For many of the 13.3 million uninsured young adults in America, it comes as no surprise that their demographic leads those going without health coverage. According to the Commonwealth Fund, a private, non-partisan foundation supporting independent research on health and social issues, in 2005, thirty percent of the forty-five million people in the U.S. who lacked health insurance were between the ages of nineteen and twenty-nine. Texas had the worst record overall, with twenty-five percent of its total population going unprotected. The state actually failed to insure even more of its young adults — twenty-seven percent.

Texans could save up to eighty percent on certain medical bills if they play their cards right, according to several publications released over the past few years. A typical American family of four is expected to receive $14,500 worth of medical care this year, and an insured family will pay an average of over a third of that — $5,100 — on their own. That’s eight percent higher than last year. With out-of-pocket expenses rising at least eight percent every year since 2000, it’s no wonder over 46 million Americans are going without health insurance — including over one-quarter of Texans.

Minority children in Texas are at higher risk for asthma, according to recent reports. One million children in Texas are considered asthmatic — more than ten percent of all children in the country diagnosed with the disease — and African-American and Puerto Rican kids are six times as likely to die from it as their counterparts, says a report from the National Center for Health Statistics. In the Southeastern region of the state alone, which includes the Houston-Galveston area, 76,450 children ages fourteen and under are afflicted with the condition. In 1997, 10,600 emergency room visits were related to pediatric asthma care, and over 200,000 hospitalizations in the state are still reported each year due to the disease.