The % of people uninsured is at the lowest level ever recorded, but not yet zero. pic.twitter.com/whtIBcb075
— Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) February 5, 2016
This is good news. The questions are how to keep pushing that number done some more and how to make sure that the people who are covered actually can use the medical system without fear of bankruptcy.
The data is lagging a little bit so with the current open enrollment seeing roughly a million more people sign up and 1.3 million more people actually pay their first month’s premiums, this will knock down another .2% (~330K = .1%, roughly half of enrollees on Exchange were uninsured). One of the big drivers over the past three years has been the expansion of Medicaid. Pennsylvania and Indiana were the big states that expanded Medicaid in 2015. There are no other large states with expansion plans for 2016. Alaska and Montana are still ramping up their enrollment but even if 100% of all qualified individuals in those two states sign up for Medicaid expansion, they won’t move the needle at all. If Texas or Florida or North Carolina or Georgia got on board, that would be a major event leading to a significant reduction in the ranks of the uninsured.
Update 1: What about Louisiana — yep, as a few astute correspondants pointed out, I totally forgot Louisiana. Louisiana intends to open up Medicaid Expansion for July 1, 2016. That will increase the eligible pool for several hundred thousand people. My mistake for forgetting about Louisiana.
Baud
If all states expanded Medicaid, what would the rate be?
Alex in NYC
Doesn’t that 10.5% include undocumented immigrants? So, there is no way to get it anywhere close to zero. I am just amazed that supporters of Obamacare continue to do the work of its opponents by not reporting the context when reporting these numbers. Shouldn’t we say that 10.5% is great, but that of that 10.5%, X% represents undocumented immigrants (who were never intended to be included, but we can have that discussion), and Y% represents people in Medicaid rejection states. So, among American citizens, the real uninsured rate is Z%, and would be W% if we didn’t have Neanderthals running states.
Baud
@Alex in NYC: Good point.
Richard Mayhew
@Baud: Close to 7% if there was 100% Medicaid expansion, and if everyone eligible for Medicaid signed up for Medicaid (Expansion and Legacy) we’re somewhere in the 5’s
Baud
@Richard Mayhew: thanks. I don’t hold those numbers against Obamacare.
MomSense
@Baud:
I do hold those numbers against psychopaths in the Supreme Court and state government. Wish our media and Democratic candidates would talk about this.
p.a.
@MomSense:
media??!!! I find your lack of realism disturbing. (h/t Vader)
Democratic candidates What, them take the offensive? Defend a successful
liberalprogressivepolicy? Maybe in primaries. We’ll see in generals.Patricia Kayden
This news calls for yet another Thanks Obama.
MomSense
@p.a.:
Oh I know. Maddow is doing a great job covering Flint so I guess I have some hope that at least a few journalists could highlight this tragedy.
GregB
This simply can’t be true, I have been repeatedly informed that millions of people have lost their coverage due to Obamacare. Such reliable sources as Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Betsey McCaughey should not be discounted.
FlipYrWhig
@GregB: THEY LOST THEIR COVERAGE and then they got new coverage which was most often better and covered more things but
Yutsano
@Richard Mayhew: If you look at every other country with UHC, that’s about the percentage they have covered as well. Even in countries like Sweden there are those rugged individualists who refuse to use the health care system there, even though it would be paid for.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
And now the “We hate America (by not investing our liquid capital into growth industries)” crowd, IE the poor, have insurance. Thanks Obummer. He’s going to turn us into another terrorist state like Berkley.
NCSteve
@p.a.: If Bernie did it, it would be proof that Obamacare could work, which his most devoted supporters would find ideologically offensive and if Hillary did it, the MSM would just scoff in incredulity at her so-called “facts” and “math” (because emailghazzi! dishonest!) and sneer at her for blaming Republicans for Obama’s failures.
NCSteve
@GregB: “On the one hand, people with facts say x, but ‘critics’ say ‘not x. Whichever side is right, one thing for sure is that this controversy isn’t going away anytime soon. Back to you Wolfe.”
lol
Wow. I wonder what happened during the 80s to make the uninsured rate go up 5 points.
Probably a total mystery. We’ll never know the cause.
We’ll have to leave it there. Back to you Anderson.
low-tech cyclist
From the worst uninsured rate in the last 40 years, to the best, in just 5 years.
Thanks, President Obama.
And yeah, it was worth the effort of making all those PTDB calls to the Congresscritters in early 2010.