Nearly Half of the Uninsured are Eligible for Medicaid or Obamacare

Nearly half of the 32.3 million nonelderly people in the United States who didn’t have health insurance at the beginning of this year are eligible for Medicaid or subsidized coverage through an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace, according to an analysis by Kaiser Family Foundation.

Among states, the percentage who are eligible for Medicaid or subsidized ACA coverage ranges from 35% in Nebraska and Texas to 75% in West Virginia, the analysis indicated. Five states make up about 40% of the uninsured population that could receive Medicaid or subsidized private coverage under the ACA. Those states, and the number of uninsured who are eligible for assistance, are:

• California: 2.1 million

• Texas: 1.5 million

• Florida: 1.1 million

• New York: 865,000

• Pennsylvania: 656,000.

Some of the nonelderly who are uninsured fall into a gap: They earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid, but they don’t earn enough to be eligible for financial assistance through an ACA Marketplace. The number falling into the gap is 10%, or 3.1 million.

The gap exists in 20 state that elected not to expand Medicaid. Among those states, the ones with the largest number of people with the coverage gap are

: • Texas: 766,000

• Florida: 567,000

• Georgia: 305,000

• North Carolina: 244,000.

The report, “New estimates of eligibility for ACA coverage among the uninsured,” is based on data from the 2015 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement and other sources. Additional details on this story will be in an upcoming issue of Hospital Access Management.