Many in Northeast Ohio's Big Cities Lack Health Insurance

Northeast Ohio is home to come of the best health care in the world, with the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals System, MetroHealth Medical Center, and so on. Unfortunately, many area residents do not have the health insurance to take advantage of it. According to US Census Bureau data released on Monday, 22 percent of Cleveland's population under the age of 65 has no coverage.

Comparatively, 13.4 percent of Ohioans and 17 percent of people nationwide lack health insurance. Health coverage varied widely by region nationwide, based in part on levels of unemployment. The only other Ohio city worse off than Cleveland was Canton, where almost 24 percent of the population has no insurance. Akron did not fare well, with 19.4 percent of their population uninsured, and Lorain came in with 18.3 percent. The only city in Northeast Ohio that actually fared better than the state average was Parma, where just 11.5 percent of the population live without health insurance.

This was the first time that the Census Bureau released a breakdown of health insurance coverage by city and county. The statistics are from surveys that were conducted in 2008 just after the economic recession hit in December 2007.