Rural counties' health-insurance rates lag, but not in Medicaid-expansion states; interactive map has county data

Change in percentage of uninsured under age 65 from 2013-2006
(U.S. Census Bureau map; click on the image to enlarge or click here for the interactive version) 

Though more Americans under 65 across the nation had health insurance from 2013 to 2016, rural areas still had higher rates of uninsured people, according to an illustrated survey of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, complete with an interactive map with county-by-county data.

Standing out on the map are states with large rural populations that expanded Medicaid in 2014 under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, New Mexico, Colorado and Montana.

The census compared residents in mostly urban counties, mostly rural counties, and completely rural counties (in which all the census tracts are classified as rural). Among the findings:

• About 12 percent of people in completely rural counties were uninsured, compared with 11 percent in mostly rural counties and 9.8 percent in mostly urban counties.
• Completely rural counties in states that expanded Medicaid had an 8.8 percent uninsured rate, compared with a 14.3 percent rate for completely rural counties in states that didn't expand Medicaid.
• In almost every county in the U.S., the percentage of people without insurance declined from 2013 to 2016; most counties that saw an increase in uninsured residents had a significant population of Native Americans living on reservations.