Obama’s Health Law: Who Was Helped Most
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/29/upshot/obamacare-who-was-helped-most.html?rref=upshot&abt=0002&abg=1&_r=2
We know that about 10 million more people have insurance coverage this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act. But until now it has been difficult to say much about who was getting that coverage — where they live, their age, their income and other such details.
Now a large set of data — from Enroll America, the group trying to sign up people for the program, and from the data firm Civis Analytics — is allowing a much clearer picture. The data shows that the law has done something rather unusual in the American economy this century: It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income — in the form of health insurance or insurance subsidies — to many of the groups that have fared poorly over the last few decades.
The biggest winners from the law include people between the ages of 18 and 34; blacks; Hispanics; and people who live in rural areas. The areas with the largest increases in the health insurance rate, for example, include rural Arkansas and Nevada; southern Texas; large swaths of New Mexico, Kentucky and West Virginia; and much of inland California and Oregon.
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That state boundaries are so prominent in the map attests to the power of state policy in shaping health insurance conditions. The most important factor in predicting whether an American who had no insurance in 2013 signed up this year was whether the state that person lives in expanded its Medicaid program in 2014. (Just consider the contrast between Kentucky, which expanded Medicaid, and Tennessee, which did not.)
The map, which I couldn't paste into this post, is highly illustrative. My state, Wisconsin, appears to be among the worst-served in the nation. Thanks Governer (sic) Walker.
Love the part about how the ACA reduces inequality. The law isn't perfect, but perfection is the enemy of progress. We've made substantial progress under this law.