Recent reports have touted a significant drop in the number of uninsured and generally credited Obamacare for it. And, other reports have recently highlighted about 950,000 more people signing up for Obamacare since the 2015 open enrollment closed but haven’t said anything about the number of people who dropped their coverage during the same period.
As one headline put it, “After Obamacare Number of Uninsured Hits Five Year-Low.” Now, this headline might be technically correct but it hardly gives us the proper impression for why the uninsured rate has dropped so low.
Obamacare supporters have been citing two recent reports about the decline in the number of those uninsured: The federal government’s National Health Interview Survey found that 7 million fewer people were uninsured in the first three months of this year, when compared to the average for all of 2014. The uninsured rate has dropped to 9.2 percent of the population—a modern day low.
A large independent survey called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found a statistically significant drop in the uninsured rate for most states since Obamacare launched in 2013. States that expanded Medicaid expansion saw bigger declines than the states that didn’t.
Read the full article here.
Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA, Group Health Insurance Broker and Agent with Cosby Insurance Group, with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.
