Monday, November 02, 2015

County level maps show changes in uninsured rates from 2013 to 2015

The New York Times has created a county-level map that shows where Americans remain uninsured. The largest portion of uninsured are in the South and Southwest and tend to be poor and live in Republican-led states that chose not to expand Medicaid under federal health reform, Quoctrung Bui and Margot Sanger-Katz report for the Times. Maps from 2013 and 2014—Obamacare went into effect on Jan. 1, 2014—are also used to show county-level changes in the number of uninsured.
"Fewer people signed up for insurance this year using the new state marketplaces than some analysts had expected," Bui and Sanger-Katz writes. "Medicaid enrollment leveled off. And many of the people who lack insurance in states with a lot of uninsured people are effectively unable to benefit from Obamacare programs because of their low incomes and local politicians’ decisions to forgo Medicaid expansion. More than three million people in 19 states remain stuck in a 'Medicaid gap,' too poor to qualify for subsidies in the new marketplaces but unable to get into a government program. Medicaid expansion continues to be a huge predictor of how many people remain uninsured in a given state." (For an interactive version, click here)

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