Study: One in 10 U.S. Veterans Has No Health Insurance - New America Media

Study: One in 10 U.S. Veterans Has No Health Insurance - New America Media

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 There are currently around 13 million veterans between the ages of 19 and 64 living in the United States. Some 17 percent of those without insurance report suffering from service-related disabilities or functional limitations, while 41 percent say they have unmet medical needs. Another 34 percent say they have delayed care due to cost, the report notes.

With two wars winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the findings also showed that one in four uninsured veterans served between September 2001 and 2010.

The report is the first to examine rates of health insurance among veterans on both the national and state level. There are several states with more than 14 percent uninsured – Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. On average, uninsurance is higher among those that have “taken only limited steps toward implementing exchanges under the ACA,” according to the report.

Texas and California are each home to more than 100,000 uninsured vets, the study found.

While the authors of the report say more aggressive implementation of the ACA would help ameliorate the problem, J.P. Tremblay, spokesperson for the California Department of Veterans Affairs, says the real issue is making sure vets understand the benefits available to them through the VA system.

“Many don’t know,” says Tremblay, who explains that when returning home, soldiers “get a week of transition services” – meaning they sit in a class while someone lectures them on accessing benefits. The problem, he says, is that most are only thinking of one thing, and that’s “getting home.”

Tremblay says the ACA is in many ways modeled after the VA system, which he describes as “top notch,” adding that all returning vets are guaranteed coverage for the first five years. The challenge, he says, is “getting into the system.”