Number of Newly Uninsured Americans Rises Along With Jobless Rate

JUDY WOODRUFF:

Next, a pair of reports looking at the impact of the recession.

As the numbers of laid-off workers are rising, so, too, are the ranks of those without health insurance. Starbucks was the latest company to begin another round of cuts today. In all, more than 2 million Americans have been laid off in the last three months.

Health correspondent Betty Ann Bowser went to Connecticut to see firsthand how all this is changing people's lives. Our Health Unit is a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

BETTY ANN BOWSER, NewsHour Correspondent:

For the first time in three decades, unemployment in Bridgeport, Connecticut, went double digit in December, 10 percent, making it one of the hardest-hit cities in the country.

Most of the people who've lost their jobs have also lost their health insurance. So every day, more and more of the unemployed are being forced to turn to the government for health care through Medicaid.

DOCTOR:

Does coughing wake you up at night?

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Medicaid provides health care to families with low incomes.

DOCTOR:

I want you to take some nice, big, deep, slow breaths through your mouth.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Each state has its own eligibility rules. Many of the new Medicaid applicants have worked all their lives, have always had health insurance, and never had to ask the government for help, until now.

Donny Djurkovic spend a lot of time on the Internet looking for an accounting job to replace the one he lost last year. Recently, he got Medicaid for himself and his son.

Marta Calderon worked for a food wholesale company for 23 years before it closed its Bridgeport office. She recently got Medicaid for her 13-year-old grandson, whom she's raising, and herself.

Rosita Velez's husband died three years ago, leaving her with a young child to raise alone. When her job got outsourced, she applied for Medicaid. Her daughter was accepted; she was turned down.

This time last year, Dee Brassell was making $60,000 a year as an analyst for a beverage company. She did find part-time work, but it pays less than half what she was making originally. Currently, she doesn't qualify for Medicaid.

Three of the four recently took part in a Henry J. Kaiser Foundation focus group on Medicaid. Kaiser estimates that, for every percentage point increase in unemployment, 1 million additional people lose their health insurance.

DEE BRASSELL:

It overwhelms you. It takes over your life, that worry.