Uninsured rate dropped to 13.8% nationally, 11.4% in Arkansas

The Los Angeles Times (2/25, Levey) reports that the US uninsured rate “plummeted last year, with the improvement driven by states that have fully implemented the Affordable Care Act, a new nationwide Gallup survey indicates.” The survey found that the rate of uninsured adults nationwide fell from 17.3 percent in 2013 to 13.8 percent last year. Ten of the 11 states with the largest declines “implemented both pillars of the federal health law: expanding Medicaid coverage to low-income adults and setting up a fully or partially functioning state-based marketplace.” In a report detailing the new findings, Gallup’s Dan Witters wrote, “While a majority of Americans continue to disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, it has clearly had an impact in reducing the uninsured rate in the U.S., which declined to its lowest point in seven years in 2014.”

The Washington Post (2/25, Millman) reports in its “Wonkblog” that the 13.8 percent figure marks the lowest rate in the seven years Gallup has been tracking the data. According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, states that set up their own insurance exchanges and expanded Medicaid “on average saw their uninsured rates drop 4.8 percentage points last year, compared to the 2.7 percentage point drop recorded by states that didn’t opt for both major pieces of the law’s coverage expansion.” No state saw a significant increase in their uninsured rate last year, though southern states “continue to rank among those with the highest rates of the uninsured.”

Likewise, CBS News (2/25) reports that states with the lowest uninsured rates “are clustered in the Northeast and upper Midwest, while those with the highest rates of uninsured Americans are mostly in Southern states such as Georgia and Louisiana, according to a new study from Gallup.”

Nonetheless, the two states with the largest drop “in their respective rates of uninsured are Kentucky and Arkansas, both deeply red in presidential years,” the Huffington Post (2/25, Grim) reports. Kentucky’s uninsured rate fell from 20.4 percent to 9.8 percent, while Arkansas’ rate dropped from 22.5 percent to 11.4 percent, Gallup found.

CNBC (2/24) reports that Massachusetts “had the lowest uninsured rate, for the seventh straight year, at 4.6 percent,” while Texas had the highest uninsured rate at 24.4 percent.

From AMA Morning Rounds, 2-25-2015.