The ACS, which measures whether or not someone has insurance at the time they are interviewed, recorded a similar drop (2.8 percent) in the uninsured rate in 2014 – “marking the largest percentage-point decline in the uninsured rate” since 2008, the Census Bureau said. The Census Bureau reports Wednesday that 46.7 million Americans, or 14.8 percent of the population, lived below the poverty line a year ago , statistically unchanged from 2013.
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The findings suggest that provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including the expansion of Medicaid in states such as Ohio, are having the desired effect in reducing the number of uninsured people.
Supporters of the Affordable Care Act have been pointing to polling for some time now that says the number of uninsured in the United States has declined.
One of the most notable changes from 2013 to 2014 was the rate of health insurance coverage among states.
A poll by Latino Decisions found large drops in the uninsured rate for Hispanics in New Mexico-from 23 percent in 2013 to 8 percent in 2014. The state with the lowest rate of uninsured residents is Massachusetts, at 3.9 percent. “It’s not in income, it’s not in poverty rates, but it is in basic coverage of health insurance”. Not surprisingly, among types of coverage, the biggest increases were in people covered by Medicaid (up 2 percentage points to 62 million people) and people buying their own health plans (up 3.2 percentage points to 14.6 million people).
The ACA was fully implemented in 2014 with the debut of the insurance exchange, and Georgia’s sign ups in that new marketplace surpassed 310,000.
Nationwide, the percentage of uninsured dropped from 13 down to 10.
Cathryn Marchman of Mercy Care, a federally qualified health center serving Atlanta’s poor, said its percentage of patients without coverage has not changed.
Though the Bureau releases annual statistics on health insurance, this year’s data is particularly interesting.
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In Wisconsin, the uninsured rate decreased from 9.1% to 7.3%, a drop from 518,000 uninsured people to 418,000. Analysts say these gains are concentrated in the states (including Washington, D.C.) that have opted to expand Medicaid eligibility under Obamacare. Data on health insurance coverage, employment by industry, food stamp recipiency, poverty, and income inequality also came from the 2014 ACS.
