Over 77,000 Wisconsin residents lost their health insurance coverage in 2009 because of unemployment, according to statistics released Tuesday by Citizen Action of Wisconsin.
According to the release, the percentage of uninsured Wisconsinites jumped to 14.3 percent from 12 percent within the past year.
The release also said 61.9 percent of Americans get their health insurance from their employer or that of a family member.
That number is even higher in Wisconsin because the recession has had the greatest impacts on the manufacturing sector, which includes a large amount of Wisconsin jobs, according to Robert Kraig, executive director of CAW.
He said Wisconsin was the 13th worst state in the country in terms of the number of people who have lost their insurance in the past year.
According to Kraig, without BadgerCare Plus, a government program that provides health-care coverage for some Wisconsin residents, these statistics could have been much worse.
""[BadgerCare Plus] actually helps cushion all of this, because we have among the best Medicaid and child health insurance plans in the country as far as eligibility and coverage,"" he said.
Kraig said it is unlikely Wisconsin will be able to continue its current health-care funding levels and that the future of health-care reform lies in the hands of the federal government, where health-care plans remain under discussion.
""Unless we do something about spiraling health-care costs, there is a point in which the state can't afford to do it anymore, and so even if BadgerCare has been successful, there is still a real need for national reform in order to create affordability for everyone,"" he said.
