Many residents of Ulster County are anxious about health care costs. As noted, making health care more affordable remains the number one priority for county residents of the county, and making health insurance easier to get is ranked fourth.
In Ulster County, this issue hits close to home. Nearly one-third of all county households have a member who has not had uninterrupted health insurance coverage and, therefore, has experienced a gap in that insurance for at least some time over the course of the last year. 15% of all households have at least one person who is currently without health insurance. In fact, Ulster County has one of the highest rates of households without current coverage in the region.
Ulster County is one of the two Mid-Hudson Valley counties with the greatest proportion of households which face gaps in their health insurance coverage. The other county is Columbia, where, like Ulster County, 31% of households have not had continuous coverage over the past year.
Many Ulster County households with children are also strained in their efforts to secure coverage for their children. 19% of county households have at least one child who has experienced a gap in coverage over the past year, and 8% of county households include a child who is presently without insurance.