The ACA and the Uninsured
By Just what the Republican Party has always wanted:
The uninsured rate in Minnesota has fallen by more than 40 percent since the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion started, a new report from the State Health Access Data Assistance Center shows.
The analysis appears to be the first assessment of how a state’s uninsured rate has changed since the insurance expansion began in October. It shows that, between September 2013 and May 2014, the number of uninsured Minnesotans fell from 445,000 to about 264,500.
Most of the increase in coverage was through public programs, rather than people gaining private insurance through the exchange. Enrollment in two of Minnesota’s largest public coverage programs, Medical Assistance (the state Medicaid program) and MinnesotaCare (a subsidy program for low-income residents), grew by 155,000 during the open enrollment period.
[…]
Gallup data suggests that, nationally, the uninsured rate has fallen by just about 22 percent since the insurance expansion began, from 17.1 percent during the last quarter of 2013 to 13.4 percent in the second quarter of 2014.
If only instead of this massive bailout of the health insurance industry we had continued to hold these people hostage. We’d have passed the Nationalize the Health Insurance Industry And I Want My Pony RIGHT NOW Act of Never in no time; why, the Republican Party is even more reasonable now that it was under Majority Leader John Chafee.