NEW ESTIMATES OF THE UNDERINSURED YOUNGER THAN 65 YEARS

We estimate that at least 29 million Americans with private insurance are underinsured. That figure identifies the underinsured younger than 65 years by the risk of large out-of-pocket expenditures for an unusu ally expensive, catastrophic illness. A slightly smaller number, about 25 million, are underinsured by an alternate definition: they have in surance that pays a smaller proportion of claims than the plan with th e largest enrollment in the federal employee program. The federal empl oyee plan was the insurance standard proposed in several recent health system reform bills. Our estimate of the number of people who are und erinsured for catastrophic illness is almost half again larger than th e number that was widely cited during last year's debates on health sy stem reform. That estimate was based on the same concept but was proje cted from a study published 10 years ago.