Ten states have uninsured rates below 5 percent. What are they doing right?

Ten states have uninsured rates below 5 percent. What are they doing right?

Universal health care remains an unrealized dream for the United States. But in some parts of the country, the dream has drawn closer to a reality in the 13 years since the Affordable Care Act passed.

Overall, the number of uninsured Americans has fallen from 46.5 million in 2010, the year President Barack Obama signed his signature health care law, to about 26 million today. The US health system still has plenty of flaws — beyond the 8 percent of the population who are uninsured, far higher than in peer countries, many of the people who technically have health insurance still find it difficult to cover their share of their medical bills. Nevertheless, more people enjoy some financial protection against health care expenses than in any previous period in US history.

  • Billiam
    6•1 year ago

    Kentucky is there because of Kynect. When the ACA passed, Kentucky was one of the few red states to create our own state insurance exchange instead of relying on the federal exchange (which in hindsight, is a really fucking funny thing for the other red states to do. I thought they hated relying on the federal government?). At the time, it was lauded as a prime example of how to create and run such an exchange. And despite Bevin dismantling it when he was elected, our current governor made sure to restart it.

    Also, because our governor at the time was a Democrat (Steve Beshear, the father of our current governor) Kentucky took the Medicaid expansion. So we had the money to cover the extra enrollees.