Posted on 08/07/2014 5:49:30 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
WASHINGTON -- States that have aggressively put the Affordable Care Act into practice have cut the number of uninsured residents sharply -- in some cases in half or better -- while those that balked have improved little if at all, according to new data released Tuesday.
The state-by-state numbers, from Gallup's Healthways Well-Being Index, reinforce one of the major effects of Obamacare so far: Political debate has widened the health care gap between red and blue states.
All 10 states with the largest percentages of uninsured adults now have Republican governors and legislatures. The lowest percentages all are governed by Democrats, with the exception of Pennsylvania.
The 10 states with the biggest improvement in insurance coverage all took two major steps to implement the health care law -- they expanded Medicaid coverage, as the law allows, and they either set up their own online marketplace to let residents buy insurance or they entered into a partnership with the federal government to create one.
By contrast, the states that still have the highest percentages of uninsured residents all declined to expand Medicaid and refused to participate in creating the online exchanges, leaving that task to Washington. Some states went further this year and actively impeded the exchanges, forbidding state employees to provide information about them, for example.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
That has always been the deception. Health insurance is not healthcare. The healthcare being delivered will be far worse.
How about lefties get the hell out of red states and head for the nearest “socialist utopia” state? I hear Chicago, IL is welcoming deadbeats with open arms...
Who has been paying thus far, and who will be picking up the tab next year?
LOL..and next year, the premiums will be going up and the subsidies will be going down and the stupid Democrat states will have to raise taxes to cover the cost of ObamaCare’s massive rip-off.
Only the morons at the Pioneer Press would be bragging about this catastrophe, but then, their from the slow Mid-West. Don’t come begging to Congress for a bailout from the sensible states who actually can do math. Texas, we are proud to point out, was the first state to opt out of a state exchange. We’ve been stuck with feeding, medicating, educating and incarcerating Mexico’s cast-offs for decades, and knew what to expect from this latest D. C. boondoggle.
Oops apologies for the “they’re” and”their” error. My third grade teacher is scowling.
Freedom in the states that reject the death panel law is greater than the sycophants.
Yeah, everyone in North Korea has coverage. It would be such a fine state if it was in the USA.
DO you mean to suggest that 1/6th of the GDP (healthcare)is politically motivated ?
I am shocked ,,,shocked I tell you !!
How do they know who is uninsured? I suspect the blue states have had large influxes of illegals etc., as well as youth (main voluntary uninsured demographic) leaving for red states to find jobs/escape taxes, etc.
I wonder how much the “well being” index will drop as the quality of care goes down and the premiums drastically rise soon? Stand by blue states....reality is about to hit.
by putting them all on Medicaid with temporary money from the Feds.
Propagandists go to derivative stats like “percentages of change” when the truth is inconvenient. What matters:
1) The percentages of population covered by real insurance. A state whose population was 95% insured before ObamaCare and 95% after ObamaCare would have a 0% increase, but an enviable level of coverage. A state with 10% insured could look good by jumping to 20%. So the article’s metric is meaningless without absolute coverage data, which is something the Obama administration hides.
2. Did “coverage growth” occur in paid-for insurance, or welfare? The real story is “Massive Increases in Welfare Spending Due to ACA”.
3. Is increased welfare spending on Medicaid and subsidies sustainable? Democrat states indeed have greatly expanded Medicaid, as the Affordable Care Act intended. Coverage as a free welfare benefit is quite affordable to the consumer; but is it affordable for the taxpayers and lenders actually paying the bill? Most of the states that expanded Medicaid have major budget woes, due to ...expansion of Medicaid. The article reinforces the obvious: Democrats tend to be very poor stewards and run anything they control into debt and bankruptcy.
4. Did ACA bring lots of healthy, young people into the paid insurance market, to bring in massive the new revenue necessary to subsidize all the non-payers (the “upside” used to justify the economics of the whole enterprise)? Uh...no. Healthy young people either have jobs with benefits or are unemployed or earn so little they qualify for Medicaid or subsidies.
Importantly, the question this poll does not ask is “How important is it to the people of these states that the uninsured get insurance?”
Of course, if the question was phrased by a conservative, it would be “How willing are you to pay more in taxes so that uninsured people get insurance?”
healthcare “Clinton Cops” program.
And which they will have to pay back!
How about "nonexistent"?
The difference being the numbers allowed into Medicaid.
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