FL among states with highest rate of adults under 65 without healthcare, CDC survey says

Florida is the second state with the highest rate of adults under 65 who say they don’t have any kind of healthcare coverage, according to newly released data from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey.

The CDC released on Tuesday 2022 data from its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System telephone survey, which tracks healthcare access.

Overall, Southern states had higher rates of adults under 65 who do not have healthcare coverage (people over 65 qualify for Medicare). Texas took the number one spot with 21.5 percent, and Florida took the second with 16 percent.

Other rates are: Georgia 15.9, Nevada 15.5, South Carolina 14.4, Wyoming 14.1 and Arizona 14.

Another question in the survey asked participants whether there was a time in the past year when they needed to see a doctor but could not afford it.

There, Florida fared slightly better than bordering states. A little over 13 percent of Floridians said that there had been a time when they couldn’t afford to go to a doctor despite needing to do so.

On the other hand, more than 77 percent of Floridians said that they had visited a doctor for a routine checkup within the past year, which was a higher rate than states on the West Coast.

More than 445,000 residents of the 50 states, D.C. and participating U.S. territories answered the survey questions.