{"id":12394,"date":"2023-12-10T15:17:26","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T15:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12394"},"modified":"2023-12-10T15:17:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T15:17:26","slug":"the-us-doesnt-have-universal-health-care-but-these-states-almost-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12394","title":{"rendered":"The US doesn\u2019t have universal health care \u2014 but these states (almost) do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Universal health care<\/a> remains an unrealized dream for the United States. But in some parts of the country, the dream has drawn closer to a reality in the 13 years since the Affordable Care Act<\/a> passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the number of uninsured Americans has fallen<\/a> from 46.5 million in 2010, the year President Barack Obama signed his signature health care<\/a> law, to about 26 million today. The US health system still has plenty of flaws \u2014 beyond the 8 percent of the population who are uninsured, far higher than in peer countries, many of the people who technically have health insurance still find it difficult to cover their share of their medical bills<\/a>. Nevertheless, more people enjoy some financial protection against health care expenses than in any previous period in US history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country is inching toward universal coverage. If everybody who qualified for either the ACA\u2019s financial assistance or its Medicaid expansion were successfully enrolled in the program, we would get closer still: More than half of the uninsured<\/a> are technically eligible for government health care aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particularly in the last few years, it has been the states, using the tools made available by them by the ACA, that have been chipping away most aggressively at the number of uninsured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, 10 states<\/a> have an uninsured rate below 5 percent \u2014 not quite universal coverage, but getting close. Other states may be hovering around the national average, but that still represents a dramatic improvement from the pre-ACA reality: In New Mexico<\/a>, for instance, 23 percent of its population was uninsured in 2010; now just 8 percent is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their success indicates that, even without another major federal health care reform effort, it is possible to reduce the number of uninsured in the United States. If states are more aggressive about using all of the tools available to them under the ACA, the country could continue to bring down the number of uninsured people within its borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law gave states discretion to build upon its basic structure. Many received approval from the federal government to create programs that lower premiums; some also offer state subsidies in addition to the federal assistance to reduce the cost of coverage, including for people who are not eligible for federal aid, such as undocumented immigrants. A few states are even offering new state-run health plans that will compete with private offerings.”
https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy\/23972827\/us-aca-enrollment-universal-health-insurance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Universal health care remains an unrealized dream for the United States. But in some parts of the country, the dream has drawn closer to a reality in the 13 years since the Affordable Care Act passed.
\nOverall, the number of uninsured Americans has fallen from 46.5 million in 2010, the year President Barack Obama signed his signature health care law, to about 26 million today. The US health system still has plenty of flaws \u2014 beyond the 8 percent of the population who are uninsured, far higher than in peer countries, many of the people who technically have health insurance still find it difficult to cover their share of their medical bills. Nevertheless, more people enjoy some financial protection against health care expenses than in any previous period in US history.<\/p>\n

The country is inching toward universal coverage. If everybody who qualified for either the ACA\u2019s financial assistance or its Medicaid expansion were successfully enrolled in the program, we would get closer still: More than half of the uninsured are technically eligible for government health care aid.<\/p>\n

Particularly in the last few years, it has been the states, using the tools made available by them by the ACA, that have been chipping away most aggressively at the number of uninsured.<\/p>\n

Today, 10 states have an uninsured rate below 5 percent \u2014 not quite universal coverage, but getting close. Other states may be hovering around the national average, but that still represents a dramatic improvement from the pre-ACA reality: In New Mexico, for instance, 23 percent of its population was uninsured in 2010; now just 8 percent is.<\/p>\n

Their success indicates that, even without another major federal health care reform effort, it is possible to reduce the number of uninsured in the United States. If states are more aggressive about using all of the tools available to them under the ACA, the country could continue to bring down the number of uninsured people within its borders.<\/p>\n

The law gave states discretion to build upon its basic structure. Many received approval from the federal government to create programs that lower premiums; some also offer state subsidies in addition to the federal assistance to reduce the cost of coverage, including for people who are not eligible for federal aid, such as undocumented immigrants. A few states are even offering new state-run health plans that will compete with private offerings.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy\/23972827\/us-aca-enrollment-universal-health-insurance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[334,80,73,759,619],"class_list":["post-12394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-health-insurance","tag-health-system","tag-healthcare","tag-states","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12395,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12394\/revisions\/12395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}