More Americans Have Health Insurance (Whether They Want it or Not)
The latest Gallup survey shows the rate of American adults without health insurance dipped to an all-time-low of 11.9 percent in the first quarter of this year, down from 12.9 percent at the end of 2014 and 18 percent in mid-2013. That means nearly nine in 10 adults now say they have health coverage, which Gallup attributes primarily to provisions in the Affordable Care Act.
So far, the White House estimates that more than 16 million people have gained health coverage through Obamacare.
Related: Obamacare Goes to Court as Uninsured Rate Hits New Low
Gallup notes that the uninsured rate is likely to continue trending downward this year as more people sign up for coverage during the special enrollment period, which ends on April 30. The administration granted extra time to people who were unaware of the law’s individual mandate requiring everyone to have health coverage or be subject to a tax penalty.
The pollsters noted that there are, of course, other factors that have helped lower the percentage of uninsured people in the U.S., including the improving economy and a falling unemployment rate. Even so, they suggested that Obamacare played the largest role: “The uninsured rate is significantly lower than it was in early 2008, before the depths of the economic recession, suggesting that the recent decline is due to more than just an improving economy.”
Related: Poll Shows Why Obamacare Ruling Could Be Devastating
The poll of 43,575 adults over the first three months of the year suggests that the health care reform law is succeeding in its primary goal of expanding access to coverage, though questions remain about just how affordable that care is — and whether the law will be undone by a Supreme Court ruling, scheduled to be announced in June in the case of King v Burwell. The high court’s interpretation of language in one sentence of the Affordable Care Act will determine whether roughly 8 million people will lose health insurance subsidies. Read about the case here.
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Coming Soon: Deductible Relief Day!
You may be familiar with the concept of Tax Freedom Day – the date on which you have earned enough to pay all of your taxes for the year. Focusing on a different kind of financial burden, analysts at the Kaiser Family Foundation have created Deductible Relief Day – the date on which people in employer-sponsored insurance plans have spent enough on health care to meet the average annual deductible.
Average deductibles have more than tripled over the last decade, forcing people to spend more out of pocket each year. As a result, Deductible Relief Day is “getting later and later in the year,” Kaiser’s Larry Levitt said in a tweet Thursday.
Chart of the Day: Families Still Struggling
Ten years into what will soon be the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, 40% of families say they are still struggling, according to a new report from the Urban Institute. “Nearly 4 in 10 nonelderly adults reported that in 2018, their families experienced material hardship—defined as trouble paying or being unable to pay for housing, utilities, food, or medical care at some point during the year—which was not significantly different from the share reporting these difficulties for the previous year,” the report says. “Among adults in families with incomes below twice the federal poverty level (FPL), over 60 percent reported at least one type of material hardship in 2018.”
Chart of the Day: Pragmatism on a Public Option
A recent Morning Consult poll 3,073 U.S. adults who say they support Medicare for All shows that they are just as likely to back a public option that would allow Americans to buy into Medicare or Medicaid without eliminating private health insurance. “The data suggests that, in spite of the fervor for expanding health coverage, a majority of Medicare for All supporters, like all Americans, are leaning into their pragmatism in response to the current political climate — one which has left many skeptical that Capitol Hill can jolt into action on an ambitious proposal like Medicare for All quickly enough to wrangle the soaring costs of health care,” Morning Consult said.
Chart of the Day: The Explosive Growth of the EITC
The Earned Income Tax Credit, a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income workers, was established in 1975, with nominal claims of about $1.2 billion ($5.6 billion in 2016 dollars) in its first year. According to the Tax Policy Center, by 2016 “the total was $66.7 billion, almost 12 times larger in real terms.”
Chart of the Day: The Big Picture on Health Care Costs
“The health care services that rack up the highest out-of-pocket costs for patients aren't the same ones that cost the most to the health care system overall,” says Axios’s Caitlin Owens. That may distort our view of how the system works and how best to fix it. For example, Americans spend more out-of-pocket on dental services ($53 billion) than they do on hospital care ($34 billion), but the latter is a much larger part of national health care spending as a whole.
