Thanks Obamacare: 9.7M Gained Insurance, Rate of Uninsured Lowest in 50 Years

Home > Health Care Published December 19, 2014 - 12:24pm

The economy-wrecking doom Obamacare was predicted to visit upon the nation has yet to arrive, but the National Center for Health Statistics reports that the rate of Americans without health insurance has dropped to 11.3 percent — which is “at or near the lowest levels ever recorded across the 50 years for which we have data,” notes the White House Council for Economic Advisers. That drop translates as roughly 9.7 million newly covered Americans.

The Affordable Care Act was passed primarily to address the country’s high rate of the uninsured, a problem that had been escalating for decades with no end in sight as insurance company profits climbed through the roof, consumer power drained away, preventive treatment dipped and emergency rooms filled with the chronically ill. All of those negative trends are being tempered or reversed as a result of the maligned law.

And, as Time Magazine reports. the percentage of uninsured is sure to fall again next year.

The new data does not include the nearly 2.5 million who have newly selected or re-enrolled for coverage in the latest round of open enrollment which began last month. Nor does it include those who’ve gained coverage in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program since the second quarter—including 400,000 from September to October, according to new data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services—as more states expand access to the program with federal money under the law.

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Colorado Independent, The

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John Tomasic

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