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You are here: Home / Anderson On Health Insurance / Good news everybody

Good news everybody

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The Center for Disease Control came out with their annual insurance survey.

Kevin Drum has the relevant chart:

 

We should expect a local maximum of people covered in January as people sign up for coverage and a local minimum of people covered in December as people have churned off of coverage and either did not qualify for a Special Enrollment Period or chose not to use one.

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32Comments

  1. 1.

    Calouste

    In other news, the house of Tony Perkins, of Family Research Council infamy, has been destroyed by a flood. Apparently his God doesn’t just send natural disasters to punish the gay. Who knew.

  2. 2.

    clay

    You know that scene from the Simpsons, where Homer owes people money so they go to the bank and he stares into the window and says “It’s a real ghost town in there… must be closed”, even though the bank is full of activity?

    This is what Republicans are trying to do with the ACA: “Oh yeah, it’s collapsing under it’s own weight… gee, Obamacare sure is failing…”

    It didn’t work for Homer; it ain’t gonna work here either.

  3. 3.

    jl

    CBO over estimated the number of uninsured from 2015 all the way to 2017.
    Another example of CBO incompetence and failed big government policy!
    Thanks, Obama.

  5. 5.

    Ohio Mom

    Doesn’t Kevin Drum *always* have the relevant chart? That may be one of the greatest unrecognized internet traditions of them all.

    Anyway, nice to read some good news. A few of those invisible data points above the line are people I know.

  7. 7.

    Millard Filmore

    @Calouste:

    In other news, the house of Tony Perkins, of Family Research Council infamy, has been destroyed by a flood. Apparently his God doesn’t just send natural disasters to punish the gay. Who knew.

    Speaking of floods, here is an article by Charles Pierce (maybe God’s gonna get us all):
    https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029533865
    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57276/harvey-longterm-effects/

    “And this one may be my favorite, which is to say, the one that pushes me under the bed the furthest. On Galveston Island, there is the Galveston National Laboratory, which is part of the University of Texas Medical Branch. This laboratory contains some of the most deadly biological agents found in the known world, many of them of the airborne variety. It contain several Bio-Safety Level 4 labs, which are basically the places where plagues are studied. And here’s the thing, as HuffPost explains—nobody knows what’s going on there at the moment …”

  8. 8.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Looks like it’s flattened out at 10%. Who are those last 10% uninsured that ACA isn’t reaching?

  10. 10.

    Rob in CT

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    My guess is a combo of:

    1) People who would be insured via Medicaid but for red state refusal of the expansion;
    2) Young/healthy people who just don’t wanna;
    3) Homeless/mentally ill/otherwise can’t deal with signing up; and
    4) illegal immigrants

    edit: #2 looks wrong (or rather a small component of the total). The CDC report includes some charts and one of ’em is for 19-25 year olds and their uninsured rate is really low (4.4%).

    It looks to still be about $$ – the poor have higher uninsured rates, as you might imagine. Just much lower than before the ACA. And it would be lower still but for SCOTUS re-write of the law & red state refusal.

  11. 11.

    jl

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Probably a lot of it is failure of many GOP run state governments to expand Medicaid. And their refusal to set up well designed exchanges custom design for characteristics of their state’s individual policy market, and instead relying on template federal exchange.

  13. 13.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: like the other folks, I’d say the biggest driver is the Roberts Medicaid decision; beyond that, the ACA framework was never going to hit 100% anyway. Just spitballing, I’d guess the next group there might be an easy fix for is the people where the penalty is cheaper than coverage, and their budget is tight.

    Dunno about the rest, short of universal Medicaid or something.

  14. 14.

    Barbara

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: For starters: People in non-expansion states who do not qualify for the original Medicaid program because they make too much money, but who do not qualify for exchange coverage because they don’t make at least 100% of the FPL for their location. A disproportionate share of these people are in Texas and Florida.

  15. 15.

    mai naem mobile

    @Calouste: Does that mean Tony Perkins is a self hating gay man? No way, first time I’ve heard of that happening. I mean god is all knowing right??

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    In which I ever-so-briefly agree with Ann Coulter, then revert to my prior opinion.

    During the seven months of Donald Trump’s presidency, rabid conservative pundit Ann Coulter has proven somewhat nuanced in her at-times tenuous support for the billionaire president. On Wednesday, that nuance got a litter deeper when Coulter launched a tweetstorm tirade against Trump’s tax reform speech. Her reason for anger? Because he’s not building the wall fast enough.

    During his speech, Coulter immediately launched into incredulity about the president’s topic choice.

    “His election was NOT about tax cuts,” she tweeted, beginning her rant. “Has he been talking to @SpeakerRyan again?” After arguing that “EVERY GOP cuts taxes!”, Coulter then began a recent history lesson.

    “Bush cut taxes!” she exclaimed. “Did it create millions of jobs? Nope. The rich pocketed their tax cut & sent jobs abroad, hired guest workers. F– them.”

    She proceeded to go after Trump where it hurts him the most by claiming he was “only getting polite applause for tax cuts” from his audience.

    Whew, that was scary. Now let’s return to Coulter 1.0.

    “It’s like Night of the Living Dead watching our beloved @realDonaldTrump go to DC & start babbling the same old GOP nonsense on tax cuts,” she tweeted. “Want to get the crowd hollering, @realDonaldTrump? Talk about THE WALL!”

    “Tax cuts are a 2d term issue,” Coulter argued. “1st term: BUILD THE WALL, End DACA, Deport Illegals, No Refugees, No Muslims, Immigrn Moratorium. SAVE USA!”

  23. 23.

    chris

    This, Dispensing god’s Care is a long read but worth it if you’re interested in the Republican/evangelical/dominionist view on healthcare. You’ll recognise some of the names like Mike Pence and the Mercers.

    Left critiques of the AHCA or Trump’s budget often miss the unique religious goals they serve.

    Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer—who was the largest financial backer of the overtly dominionist candidate Ted Cruz before he switched to backing Trump’s election—provided Trump’s campaign with staffers such as Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, and is a key financial support for Breitbart. Conway shifted from running a Cruz super PAC on behalf of Mercer to running Trump’s campaign, and both she and Bannon were members of the dominionist Council for National Policy, which Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions also have ties to. The National Day of Prayer Task Force, whose small membership includes Pence and the New Apostolic Reformation’s Peter Wagner, has an explicit Seven Mountains’ mission.

  24. 24.

    Fair Economist

    @Millard Filmore:

    On Galveston Island, there is the Galveston National Laboratory, which is part of the University of Texas Medical Branch. This laboratory contains some of the most deadly biological agents found in the known world, many of them of the airborne variety. It contain several Bio-Safety Level 4 labs, which are basically the places where plagues are studied.

    Why on Earth is something like that in Galveston, site of the worst natural disaster in American history? It should be in a place less subject to natural disasters, like Phoenix. Even if it has to be in Texas for bureaucratic reasons it doesn’t have to be *there*.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    @Fair Economist:
    Probably an ancient budget line item, i.e., “pork barrel.” Heck, could have been LBJ or one or the other Bushes. In sum–not very smart.

    Of course, we also think of that about Fukushima now, but before?

  27. 27.

    Repatriated

    @Fair Economist: Probably physical security considerations (easier to restrict access on an island, and an inherent buffer zone if anything got out).

    Doesn’t help when the whole place goes underwater, though.

  28. 28.

    Patricia Kayden

    Thanks Obama for that good news about the uninsured. A truly great legacy for the best President in my lifetime.

  30. 30.

    Victor Matheson

    @Rob in CT: the uninsured rate for persons under age 26 will always be really low because the ACA expanded coverage to kids on their parent’s insurance up to age 25. The Young’s who just don’t wanna would be those age 26-34.

  32. 32.

    lowtechcyclist

    Nitpick: this isn’t an annual report. Per the title: Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January – March 2017

    In three months, there’ll be a similar early release of estimates from data collected via the NHIS in April-June 2017 interviews, and so on.

    Also, a shout-out to my friends at the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, MD, which is the agency under CDC that is directly responsible for the NHIS and the estimates it produces.

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