What is Cover the Uninsured Week?

This year, National Hospital Week, scheduled for May 9-15, coincides with another critical week of events focused on the health and well being of Americans-Cover the Uninsured Week. These seven days in May provide a perfect opportunity to not only celebrate the men and women who work in your hospital but also highlight a critical issue that affects all Americans – the problem of the uninsured.

Cover the Uninsured Week is the nation’s largest coordinated effort to promote the goal of affordable health coverage for all Americans. Co-chaired by former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, this series of national and local activities is part of a year-round, not-partisan effort to make this critical issue a national priority.

The American hospital Association, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, and the Federation of American Hospitals are working with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and more than 800 national and local organizations, as well as thousands of Americans in all 50 states and the District o Columbia, to make the issue of the uninsured a focus of national discussion. Cover the Uninsured Week staff and volunteers will work in communities across the country to build strong, diverse local coalitions and organize non-partisan activities.

Nearly 44 million Americans live without health care coverage - including 8.5 million children. Last year, the number of people without health care coverage increased by more than 2 million, the largest one-year increase in a decade.