Medical-Uninsured Rate and Political Parties
L. David Roper (E-mail: roperld@vt.edu)

(Back to Politics)
(Back to United States Health and Political Parties)
(Go to data table at bottom.)

The medical-uninsured rate (number/1000) varies greatly among the states in the United States. (See table at end for 1996 rates.)

An interesting question to ask is: Is there any correlation between the medical-uninsured rate and the strength of the two political parties in the states?

I compared different state's medical-uninsured rate (MUR) data for 1996 with the results of the 1996 presidential election for each state. (See table at end for votes in the 1996 election.) A correlation calculation yielded the following:

Correlation Rate
Democrat vote -0.052
Republican vote +0.194

That is, the Democratic votes for the states had a 5% negative correlation with increasing MUR and the Republican votes had a 19% positive correlation. States with high medical-uninsured rate vote more Democratic than Republican and vice versa.

This is a plot of the medical-uninsured rate (MUR) sorted by rank of the states compared to the Democratic votes and the Republican votes. (See table at end for the data.) Also shown are linear fits to the two votes. This shows visually the negative correlation of MUR with the Democratic vote and the positive correlation with the Republican vote. Note the huge difference between the highest state (Texas with 24.3 and the lowest state (Wisconsin with 8.4).

What can one conclude from these results? Whatever factors cause the large disparity for medical-uninsured rates between the various states also cause those states to tend to vote Republican.

My Republican native state, Oklahoma (rate=17), ranked 40 of 50 and my Republican adopted state, Virginia (rate=12.5), ranked 22 of 50 for increasing medical-uninsured rate in 1996.

Data taken from: http://www.census.gov/prod/3/98pubs/98statab/sasec3.pdf
U.S. medical uninsured 1996 election
State % Uninsured Democrat Republican Rank
Wisconsin 8.4 48.8% 38.5% 1
Hawaii 8.6 56.9% 31.6% 2
Michigan 8.9 51.7% 38.5% 3
New Hampshire 9.5 49.6% 39.6% 4
Pennsylvania 9.5 49.2% 40.0% 5
South Dakota 9.5 43.0% 46.5% 6
North Dakota 9.8 40.1% 46.9% 7
Rhode Island 9.9 59.7% 26.8% 8
Minnesota 10.2 51.1% 35.0% 9
Indiana 10.6 41.6% 47.1% 10
Connecticut 11 52.8% 34.7% 11
Vermont 11.1 53.4% 31.1% 12
Illinois 11.3 54.3% 36.8% 13
Kansas 11.4 36.1% 54.3% 14
Maryland 11.4 54.3% 38.3% 15
Nebraska 11.4 35.0% 53.7% 16
Ohio 11.5 47.4% 41.0% 17
Iowa 11.6 50.3% 39.9% 18
Utah 12 33.3% 54.4% 19
Maine 12.1 51.6% 30.8% 20
Massachusetts 12.4 61.5% 28.1% 21
Virginia 12.5 45.1% 47.1% 22
Alabama 12.9 43.2% 50.1% 23
Missouri 13.2 47.5% 41.2% 24
Delaware 13.4 51.8% 36.6% 25
Alaska 13.5 33.3% 50.8% 26
Washington 13.5 49.8% 37.3% 27
Wyoming 13.5 36.8% 49.8% 28
Montana 13.6 41.3% 44.1% 29
West Virginia 14.9 51.5% 36.8% 30
Tennessee 15.2 48.0% 45.6% 31
Oregon 15.3 47.2% 39.1% 32
Kentucky 15.4 45.8% 44.9% 33
Nevada 15.6 43.9% 42.9% 34
North Carolina 16 44.0% 48.7% 35
Idaho 16.5 33.6% 52.2% 36
Colorado 16.6 44.4% 45.8% 37
New Jersey 16.7 53.7% 35.9% 38
New York 17 58.3% 30.0% 39
Oklahoma 17 40.4% 48.3% 40
South Carolina 17.1 44.0% 49.8% 41
Georgia 17.8 45.8% 47.0% 42
Mississippi 18.5 44.1% 49.2% 43
Florida 18.9 48.0% 42.3% 44
California 20.1 51.1% 38.2% 45
Louisiana 20.9 52.0% 39.9% 46
Arkansas 21.7 53.7% 36.8% 47
New Mexico 22.3 49.2% 41.9% 48
Arizona 24.1 46.5% 44.3% 49
Texas 24.3 43.8% 48.8% 50

(Back to top of data table)
(Back to the top of this page)
(Back to United States Health and Political Parties)
(Back to Politics)