Obamacare six years later: 10 million still uninsured, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts

Rss@dailykos.com (joan Mccarter) · Thursday, August 18, 2016, 12:23 pm

Obamacare is six years old, and has been fully implemented now for two years, with one big exception. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, in being the fifth vote to uphold the law back in 2012, tried to save a scrap of his conservative credibility by carving out a big exception: Medicaid expansion. That big exception, and the nineteen Republican states which have refused Medicaid expansion is accounting for a big chunk of the nation's roughly 20 million uninsured.

More than half of the uninsured live in states that have not expanded Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor. The health law gave states the option to make Medicaid available to almost everyone with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level, or $33,465 for a family of four. But in April, when the survey was completed, 20 states had not done so. (Louisiana expanded Medicaid starting in June.)

Almost half of the uninsured live in the South, where many of the states that haven’t expanded Medicaid—including the two largest, Florida and Texas—are. The Midwest has had the biggest drop in its uninsured rate, to 8 percent now from 17 percent in 2013.

Hispanics make up 40 percent of the uninsured, even though that group has gained significantly under the law from 36 percent uninsured in 2013 to 29 percent now. Undocumented workers make up a big share of that, since they are not eligible for coverage under the law, but many Latinos who would be eligible for expanded Medicaid live in those big states of Texas and Florida, which still lead the nation in uninsured rates. Pre-Obamacare, 50 percent of the uninsured population was white, now down to 40 percent. The rate for blacks hasn't budged much, from 13 percent to 12.

All this means that the uninsured are poor, very poor; "39 percent have incomes under the federal poverty level, which is $24,250 for a family of four." Most would be eligible for Medicaid, if they had state lawmakers who gave a damn.

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