Report: Uninsured rate decreasing ; But Kansas Health Institute analyst says data on health care overhaul not yet complete
By Andy Marso; Andy Marso [email protected] | |
Proquest LLC |
A report published by a financial website says the rate of Kansans without health insurance has decreased about 2.55 percentage points because of the Obamacare health care overhaul -- a relatively low rate of increased coverage affected by the state's decision not to expand
Wallethub.com used data from the
The site reports that about 15.46 percent of Kansans were uninsured before the health care changes spearheaded by President
KHI used a different data set from the
Census bureau estimates for 2014 won't be available until the fall of 2015, Brunner said, so those who study health care are struggling to determine how to measure the uninsured people who gained coverage and why people who are still uninsured remained so. Some studies, such as the WalletHub one, have made certain assumptions based on the available data, but the data aren't yet available to tell how accurate their projections are, he said.
"Everybody will want to know before 2015," he said.
According to the WalletHub study, the top gains came in
At 12.91 percent uninsured,
The exchanges, which rolled out with months of technical difficulties last year before consumers could finally enroll for health plans, were one of the most high-profile aspects of the patchwork of regulations Obama signed in 2010 in an attempt to lower the number of uninsured Americans by expanding enrollment in both private and public health coverage.
The exchanges provide federal subsidies based on income to help citizens purchase private insurance, which goes hand-in-hand with an "individual mandate" provision that fines Americans who go uninsured. That went into effect this year.
An "employer mandate" requiring companies with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance was originally scheduled to begin this year but has been put on hold, and opposition to it has created doubts about it ever being realized.
The 2010 bill also expanded
Brunner said some people are expected to still be uninsured when the full data become available. Some people will always be temporarily uninsured because they are new to the work force or between jobs, he said, and about 182,000 people in
"Even the best estimates of what the Affordable Care Act would do suggested there would be a residual (uninsured) rate of 5 to 7 percent," he said.
The improvement in coverage in states that didn't expand
Those that declined to expand went from 17.88 percent uninsured to 15.87 percent uninsured. Of the 15 states that showed a lesser improvement in coverage than
Using the WalletHub projections, the federal health care overhaul has changed the overall rate of insured U.S. citizens, excluding
"In reality it is a relatively modest change to the private health insurance system focused mostly on the fair small individual and small employer market," Parente said. "However, the
Copyright: | (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |
Wordcount: | 885 |
Category Disruptor Boll & Branch Proves A Set Of Sheets Can Change The World
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News