Eight States Show Significant Gains in Health Care Coverage

A report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) showed a significant decrease last year in people who are uninsured.

Statistically, there were 8 states that saw a significant gain in health care coverage: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and New York.

It was found that Kentucky had the largest statistical drop of 6.5%, followed by Arizona with a drop of 5.9% points, and New York with a drop of 5.6%.

Another 10 states had a notable decrease in their percentages, including: Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. However, these states did not meet the survey criteria for statistical significance.

The survey examined 79,847 people, which revealed that during the first 9 months of 2015, the uninsured rate was 9.1% nationally. In 2013 prior to coverage expansion, the rate was 14.4%.

Since the majority of senior citizens have health coverage and less than 5% of teens and children are uninsured, the state numbers concentrated on the ages between 18 and 64 years.

Adults in this group had a decrease in the uninsured rate from 16.3% in 2014 to 12.9% in the first 9 months of 2015.

Adults between the ages of 25 to 34 years were more than twice as likely to lack insurance coverage (17.9%) during the first 9 months, compared with adults ages 45 to 64 (8.9%) years. Individuals who were 18 to 34-years old (14.5%) and individuals 35 to 44-years old (14.7%) had similar rates.

However, even with the health care coverage expansion law in 2014, there is still nearly 29 million people uninsured from January 2015 through September 2015. This number includes an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.

Despite these statistics, since coverage expansion the United States has seen a drop in the rate of people who are uninsured, which is at a historically all-time low.

This health care law offers subsidized private health insurance through online markets, such as HealthCare.gov, for those who do not have access to employer based coverage. The Medicaid expansion, which is aimed at adults with low incomes, is now accepted by 31 states.