More than two-thirds of Californians uninsured before the Affordable Care Act now have coverage, a new report finds.
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But the new survey shows that 34% of the newly insured had been covered in the state’s Medi-Cal program which is a low-income health initiative, while 14% were covered under the employer, and 12% signed up through Covered California, and another 8% got over coverage. But these separate studies also underscore challenges that will be faced by the advocates of health care reform in getting health coverage in the coming years, for those who remain uninsured in both the states where they are also disproportionately Hispanic.
Now, only 49% out of the newly insured stated that they face difficulty.
The Kaiser Family Foundation survey is one in a list of many surveys which aim to estimate the impact on the lives of those who choose to sign up for health insurance under the ACA. Around 44 percent of those observed cited this as the primary reason. This five percent gap was, according to de Guia, a bit of an issue, as whites and Latinos both had a 61 percent enrollment rate in last year’s survey. When it was asked in the survey whether or not their needs were met, 86% said that their all or many were met. The percentage is 51% more than from 2013. But 29 percent of the remaining uninsured are Hispanics who are eligible for Medi-Cal or exchange-sold plans, Kaiser found. And so are more than 60 percent of enrollees who received insurance through the state health insurance exchange.
The survey discovered that 41 % of the remaining uninsured aren’t eligible as a result of they’re unlawful immigrants.
Barriers to signing up the remaining uninsured, particularly Hispanics, include concerns those people have about the cost of coverage, lack of awareness of their options for coverage and worry that if they obtain coverage their relationship to a family member who is undocumented will draw scrutiny from the government, Brodie said.
“This clearly illustrates the financial and economic security that having insurance brings to people, and that we’ve been able to document in Californians”, Brodie said.
The report was released by Covered California and the California Department of Health Care Services (Guzik, HealthyCal, 7/30). Such trends “should help the entire hospital industry, particularly as more states opt to expand Medicaid“, he wrote.
“We assume that the growth in our Medicaid patient base and utilization is related at least in large part to Medicaid expansion”, Filton told analysts on the conference call.
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A total of 57.1 percent of Texas’ uninsured are Hispanic, according to the report.
