The Center for Disease Control came out with their annual insurance survey.
Kevin Drum has the relevant chart:
We should expect a local maximum of people covered in January as people sign up for coverage and a local minimum of people covered in December as people have churned off of coverage and either did not qualify for a Special Enrollment Period or chose not to use one.
Open thread
Calouste
In other news, the house of Tony Perkins, of Family Research Council infamy, has been destroyed by a flood. Apparently his God doesn’t just send natural disasters to punish the gay. Who knew.
clay
You know that scene from the Simpsons, where Homer owes people money so they go to the bank and he stares into the window and says “It’s a real ghost town in there… must be closed”, even though the bank is full of activity?
This is what Republicans are trying to do with the ACA: “Oh yeah, it’s collapsing under it’s own weight… gee, Obamacare sure is failing…”
It didn’t work for Homer; it ain’t gonna work here either.
jl
CBO over estimated the number of uninsured from 2015 all the way to 2017.
Another example of CBO incompetence and failed big government policy!
Thanks, Obama.
eclare
Wonder what the rate would be if SCOTUS hadn’t ruled against Medicaid expansion?
Ohio Mom
Doesn’t Kevin Drum *always* have the relevant chart? That may be one of the greatest unrecognized internet traditions of them all.
Anyway, nice to read some good news. A few of those invisible data points above the line are people I know.
Smiling Mortician
I love good news. Give me more! More good news, please. I am a glutton for it.
Millard Filmore
@Calouste:
Speaking of floods, here is an article by Charles Pierce (maybe God’s gonna get us all):
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029533865
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57276/harvey-longterm-effects/
“And this one may be my favorite, which is to say, the one that pushes me under the bed the furthest. On Galveston Island, there is the Galveston National Laboratory, which is part of the University of Texas Medical Branch. This laboratory contains some of the most deadly biological agents found in the known world, many of them of the airborne variety. It contain several Bio-Safety Level 4 labs, which are basically the places where plagues are studied. And here’s the thing, as HuffPost explains—nobody knows what’s going on there at the moment …”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Looks like it’s flattened out at 10%. Who are those last 10% uninsured that ACA isn’t reaching?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
just say fuck it, declare victory and pull the fuck out
Rob in CT
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
My guess is a combo of:
1) People who would be insured via Medicaid but for red state refusal of the expansion;
2) Young/healthy people who just don’t wanna;
3) Homeless/mentally ill/otherwise can’t deal with signing up; and
4) illegal immigrants
edit: #2 looks wrong (or rather a small component of the total). The CDC report includes some charts and one of ’em is for 19-25 year olds and their uninsured rate is really low (4.4%).
It looks to still be about $$ – the poor have higher uninsured rates, as you might imagine. Just much lower than before the ACA. And it would be lower still but for SCOTUS re-write of the law & red state refusal.
jl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Probably a lot of it is failure of many GOP run state governments to expand Medicaid. And their refusal to set up well designed exchanges custom design for characteristics of their state’s individual policy market, and instead relying on template federal exchange.
rikyrah
thanks for the info, Mayhew.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: like the other folks, I’d say the biggest driver is the Roberts Medicaid decision; beyond that, the ACA framework was never going to hit 100% anyway. Just spitballing, I’d guess the next group there might be an easy fix for is the people where the penalty is cheaper than coverage, and their budget is tight.
Dunno about the rest, short of universal Medicaid or something.
Barbara
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: For starters: People in non-expansion states who do not qualify for the original Medicaid program because they make too much money, but who do not qualify for exchange coverage because they don’t make at least 100% of the FPL for their location. A disproportionate share of these people are in Texas and Florida.
mai naem mobile
@Calouste: Does that mean Tony Perkins is a self hating gay man? No way, first time I’ve heard of that happening. I mean god is all knowing right??
Weaselone
@Millard Filmore:
The answer to this question is almost certainly a combination of nothing and research setbacks
Major Major Major Major
@Weaselone: no, no, clearly we’re all going to die.
OzarkHillbilly
Collapsing under it’s own weight.
David Anderson
@eclare: probably 9% instead of 10% if Medicaid expansion went through
eclare
@David Anderson: Thanks!
VOR
@Millard Filmore: Biohazard Level 4 is things like Ebola, Marburg, etc… all the real nasties. Anthrax is only Level 3.
trollhattan
In which I ever-so-briefly agree with Ann Coulter, then revert to my prior opinion.
Whew, that was scary. Now let’s return to Coulter 1.0.
chris
This, Dispensing god’s Care is a long read but worth it if you’re interested in the Republican/evangelical/dominionist view on healthcare. You’ll recognise some of the names like Mike Pence and the Mercers.
Fair Economist
@Millard Filmore:
Why on Earth is something like that in Galveston, site of the worst natural disaster in American history? It should be in a place less subject to natural disasters, like Phoenix. Even if it has to be in Texas for bureaucratic reasons it doesn’t have to be *there*.
Jeffro
@Rob in CT: #1 and #2, mostly, is my guess.
trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
Probably an ancient budget line item, i.e., “pork barrel.” Heck, could have been LBJ or one or the other Bushes. In sum–not very smart.
Of course, we also think of that about Fukushima now, but before?
Repatriated
@Fair Economist: Probably physical security considerations (easier to restrict access on an island, and an inherent buffer zone if anything got out).
Doesn’t help when the whole place goes underwater, though.
Patricia Kayden
Thanks Obama for that good news about the uninsured. A truly great legacy for the best President in my lifetime.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
The devastating Galveston hurricane was in 1900. What did they think, that there wouldn’t be any hurricanes in the future?
Victor Matheson
@Rob in CT: the uninsured rate for persons under age 26 will always be really low because the ACA expanded coverage to kids on their parent’s insurance up to age 25. The Young’s who just don’t wanna would be those age 26-34.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Calouste:
It’s just a test God is giving to his faithful servant
lowtechcyclist
Nitpick: this isn’t an annual report. Per the title: Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January – March 2017
In three months, there’ll be a similar early release of estimates from data collected via the NHIS in April-June 2017 interviews, and so on.
Also, a shout-out to my friends at the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, MD, which is the agency under CDC that is directly responsible for the NHIS and the estimates it produces.