As it was reported earlier this week by the US Census Bureau, the number of Americans without health insurance declined to 45.7 million from last year’s record of 47 million. The number of people with health insurance increased from 249.8 million to 253.4 million.

The goal of the two candidates for the upcoming presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain is to look for ways to advance health care reform. While the Obama health care plan is focused on reducing the number of uninsured Americans by 18 million in 2009 and 34 million by 2018, McCain plans to go forward with his plan to reduce the number of uninsured by 1 million in 2009 and by 5 million in 2013.

The decrease in the number of people without health insurance was attributed to the programmes of government-sponsored health insurance, such as Medicaid, or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

On the other hand, the private health insurance has become more and more expensive and other reports showed that as the health care costs continue to grow, fewer employees are able to offer insurance benefits.  

The controversial report found that the median household income rose slightly to $50,200 in 2007, with an increase of 1.3 percent from 2006. In the same time, the number of children living in poverty increased by 500,000 to 13.3 million. Overall, America’s poverty rate remained flat in 2007.