Uninsured in Texas and Florida
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD, NYT
A new Census Bureau report documents the alarming percentages of people in Texas and Florida without health insurance. Leaders of both states should hang their heads in shame because they have been among the most resistant in the nation to providing coverage for the uninsured under the Affordable Care Act, the law that Republicans deride as “Obamacare.”
The law seeks to cover millions of currently uninsured people by expanding the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor and by setting up new health care exchanges on which people can buy comprehensive private insurance policies, with subsidies to help middle-income people pay their premiums.
Many states, mostly run by Republican governors or legislatures, have refused to expand their Medicaid programs despite generous federal matching funds or have refused to set up their own health exchanges; they have left that task to the federal government.
Low-income residents of Texas and Florida desperately need health insurance, as shown by the Census Bureau’s Small Area Health Insurance Estimates for 2011, which were issued last week. The report found that more than 25 percent of the population in Texas under age 65 (5.7 million people) was uninsured, the highest rate in the nation. Florida was a close second, with just under 25 percent uninsured (3.8 million people). Massachusetts, whose pioneering reforms were the template for the federal reform law, led all 50 states and the District of Columbia with only 4.9 percent uninsured.
(More here.)
A new Census Bureau report documents the alarming percentages of people in Texas and Florida without health insurance. Leaders of both states should hang their heads in shame because they have been among the most resistant in the nation to providing coverage for the uninsured under the Affordable Care Act, the law that Republicans deride as “Obamacare.”
The law seeks to cover millions of currently uninsured people by expanding the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor and by setting up new health care exchanges on which people can buy comprehensive private insurance policies, with subsidies to help middle-income people pay their premiums.
Many states, mostly run by Republican governors or legislatures, have refused to expand their Medicaid programs despite generous federal matching funds or have refused to set up their own health exchanges; they have left that task to the federal government.
Low-income residents of Texas and Florida desperately need health insurance, as shown by the Census Bureau’s Small Area Health Insurance Estimates for 2011, which were issued last week. The report found that more than 25 percent of the population in Texas under age 65 (5.7 million people) was uninsured, the highest rate in the nation. Florida was a close second, with just under 25 percent uninsured (3.8 million people). Massachusetts, whose pioneering reforms were the template for the federal reform law, led all 50 states and the District of Columbia with only 4.9 percent uninsured.
(More here.)
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