Gallup found that the steepest declines in uninsured rates came in two politically conservative states that fully embraced the law – Arkansas and Kentucky have seen their uninsured rates drop by 13.4 and 11.4 percentage points, respectively.
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Nationwide, the uninsured rate plunged from 17.3 percent in 2013 to 11.7 percent through the first half of this year. Publishing their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers analyzed data from the 2012 to 2015 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, looking at over half a million Americans between the ages of 18 and 64.
Kansas, which like Missouri did not expand Medicaid or set up its own insurance exchange, also saw a drop in its uninsured rate, albeit a more modest one that its eastern neighbor. Those states’ drops coincided not only with their expansion of Medicaid but also the establishment of their own state health exchanges, the poll found.
Expanding eligibility for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, has been found to be particularly important in reducing the uninsured rate.
Expansion would make all adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level eligible. And the law’s effects are even more dramatic in states that cooperated with the federal government instead of fighting Obamacare. Those seven states, all of which recently expanded Medicaid coverage, join Massachusetts as the only states to be at or below that rate, according to Gallup. They are using their coverage to seek recommended preventive health services, such as lifesaving breast and colorectal cancer screenings.
For comparison, Gallup pointed out that the uninsured rate declined 7.1 points in the 22 states that introduced Obamacare and Medicaid expansion, compared with a 5.3-point drop in the 28 states that had implemented only one or neither of the two.
Arkansas has the largest drop, from 22.5 percent to 9.1 percent, followed by Kentucky, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington state.
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As America’s uninsured rate has declined, the Affordable Care Act’s popularity has been inching steadily higher.
