24 Sep Decrease in Uninsured LA Residents
Finally, some good news. According to health insurance coverage estimates reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, Louisiana showed the most substantial decrease in the number of people without health insurance last year! Louisiana was said to have the lowest rate of uninsured residents out of any state on the Gulf Coast. Additionally, Louisiana is the only state in the Gulf Coast area to have created an expansion of the Medicaid program. The expansion made covering an additional 300,000 adults possible since January 2016.
It was one of three states to report a decrease in the number of uninsured residents last year. Unfortunately, the rate of uninsured Americans increased in 14 other states. The uninsured rate varied by the levels of poverty in states. Additionally, it also depended on whether or not a state worked toward expanding its Medicaid program. In states where Medicaid was expanded, the uninsured rate was 6.5 percent compared to 12.2 percent last year in states that did not seek to expand Medicaid.
In August, state health officials in Louisiana said that Medicaid expansion had contributed to a substantial decline in the uninsured rate from 644,217 people in 2015 to 321,477 last year. State health officials expect the number of uninsured people to continue to decline.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards had this to say about the new health insurance data:
“Once again, we have good news to share about the impact of our Medicaid expansion, this time from the federal government. More Louisianans than ever had health insurance in 2017, according to new numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. From 2016 to 2017, Louisiana’s uninsurance rate for adults and children dropped from 10.3 percent to 8.4 percent – the largest drop among states. We were one of only three states that experienced a statistically significant decrease between those years.”
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