Looked around and found that the rate was 13.3% before it all kicked in - looks like they twisted a few youngsters' arms and gave a lot of "free" insurance to some folks but really changed nothing except to make those who could pay, pay more....
ACA did in fact lower the uninsured rate. More people on Medicaid is 100% of the difference. 75% of the additional people on Medicaid were previously eligible for Medicaid and thus were uninsured by their own choice. They reluctantly signed up for Medicaid because the navigators made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
25% of the additional Medicaid is in the few states that expanded Medicaid.
The rationale for adding more people to Medicaid was that these people would now go to the doctor for preventive care and would use the expensive emergency room less.
Surprise. Unintended Consequence.
The additional people on Medicaid are not going to the doctor for preventive care. They are going to the Emergency Room even more now than when they were not covered by “insurance”.
There is another game with the insurance covdrage statistic. Many workers went from full to part time and lost their employer’s insurance plan. Employer’s plans became much more expensive under ACA. So the ACA now subsidizes people who previously had unsubsidized coverage. And in most cases, the previous unsubsidized coverage was better coverage.
But there is a miniscule minority who did “benefit” from the ACA. A few with pre-existing conditions who could not get coverage can not get coverage. The number is so small it is lost in the larger statistics.
Bottom line: A program that is hated by 80% and penalizes 99% is needlessly costly when the cost of the miniscule “benefit” it does provide could have been provided with a small, limited program.
But note how many “St Judes” and “Catholic Charities” are still appealing for private donations to cover the needy and those with pre-existing conditions. The amount of voluntary charity still is far greater than the amount of taxpayer money in actually benefitting those who need help. That is because St Judes, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, etc are very efficient and the government is very inefficient.
As an aside, the ACA did benefit a major class of people financially. Slavitt, CMS boss previously was in charge of the team that designed and built the original ACA website. He was promoted to CMS boss due to the track record of that website launch.
Under Obama, Murphy’s Law is reversed. The incompetent are promoted beyond their ceiling.