The U.S. Census Bureau’s annual look at income, poverty and health insurance in America shows that the percentage of people who are uninsured dropped somewhat in 2012, though not at a statistically significant rate. The percentage of people without health insurance dropped from 15.7 percent in 2011 to 15.4 percent or 48 million Americans in 2012. The biggest factor in the decline may have been increasing enrollments in Medicare, which now covers 15.7 percent of Americans. In a related development, new research from the Commonwealth Fund found that access to quality health care for poor Americans varies dramatically across the states. The report, “Health Care in the Two Americas,” suggests that 86,000 fewer people would die prematurely and tens of millions would receive timely preventive care if the gap were closed. In other news, critics of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are saying that decisions by some of the country’s biggest employers to push employees toward private health insurance exchanges is an unintended consequence of the law. Last week Walgreen’s announced it was sending 160,000 employees to exchanges for coverage while Home Deport announced it was sending about 20,000 part-time workers to the exchanges for coverage.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:17:02 +0000
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