Brookings Data Now: Half of Americans already Have Health Insurance, Growing Debt-to-GDP Ratio, and More

Commentary

Brookings Data Now: Half of Americans already Have Health Insurance, Growing Debt-to-GDP Ratio, and More

Fred Dews

October 3, 2013

In this edition of Brookings Data Now: about half of Americans already have private health insurance; Debt-to-GDP ratio growing; lack of social mobility; and Taiwan’s trade value.

160 million	Number of Americans who have private health insurance About half of all Americans are already insured, and don’t necessarily have to purchase health insurance through the new exchanges set up under the Affordable Care act.
72%	Debt-to-GDP ratio by 2023 under current fiscal policy baseline The historical average is about 36 percent.
42%	… of children raised in bottom-income quintile remain there as adults Six percent of bottom-income quintile children make it into the top quintile. For top quintile children, 39 percent stay in the top fifth, and 9 percent end up in the bottom.
$570 billion	Value of Taiwan’s trade in 2012 Taiwan’s trade is 74 percent of its GDP. It is the world’s 19th largest trader, but only the 28th largest economy in the world.