Health care coverage is in a crisis, and many states are now considering legislation to help cover the millions of Americans without health insurance. According to the Washington Post,

“All the state activity is adding pressure on politicians in Washington to act on a problem that grows worse year by year. Recent census figures show that a record 46.6 million Americans, including 8.3 million children, had no health insurance in 2005, up from 39.7 million in 1994.”

This certainly paints a dismal picture; after all, 46.6 million represents a 17 percent increase of uninsured Americans. But we need to look at the numbers more closely.

Start with the kids. In 1995, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that there were 9.8 million uninsured children under 18 in the United States (1994 numbers were not directly reported). That number is now down to 8.3 million children, though it was even fewer the previous year; only 7.9 million children went uninsured in 2004.

The improved situation for kids is even more striking if you consider the more relevant figure: the percentage of uninsured. As the U.S. population increases, we would expect an increased number of uninsured individuals – as well as an increased number of insured people. But the real progress – or lack thereof – lies in the percentage of insured or uninsured.

In 1994, the Census Bureau reported that 14.2 percent of children were uninsured. In 2005, the figure was 11.2 percent. But for the Washington Post, we might celebrate some progress on this front.

On the other hand, the story isn’t as promising for the total population; but it’s still less disastrous than the Post would lead us to believe. Approximately 15.2 percent of the population was uninsured in 1994. The figure was 15.9 percent in 2005, according to the US Census Bureau. The 2005 numbers are worse than the 1994 numbers – but rather than a 17 percent increase in the uninsured, as the absolute numbers suggest, this represents less than a five percent increase in the uninsured. And today’s numbers are still better than the situation in 1998, when the uninsured percentage peaked at 16.3 percent.

By looking at absolute numbers and not the percentages, The Washington Post misrepresented the extent to which progress has been made for children, and exaggerated the problem for adults. Following the Post’s logic, one might have argued that the situation is measurably improved – the number of insured increased by 1.4 million people in the last year alone (the Post did not report this figure).