(Press-News.org) HOUSTON - (April 30, 2015) - The percentage of Texans without health insurance dropped 31 percent since enrollment began in the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace, according to a new report released today by the Episcopal Health Foundation and Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
The report found that from September 2013 to March 2015, the percentage of uninsured adult Texans ages 18-64 dropped from 25 to 17 percent.
"This is a dramatic drop that's unprecedented in Texas," said Elena Marks, president and CEO of the Episcopal Health Foundation and a health policy scholar at the Baker Institute. "It's almost entirely attributable to newly insured individuals who purchased their own health insurance plans. The drop in the uninsured rate occurred across all income levels and age groups, including younger adults."
Despite this improvement, Texas remains the state with the highest percentage of people without health insurance, and for the first time, Texas now has the largest number of uninsured residents in the country.
The report found that the poorest Texans had the lowest drop in the uninsured rate. While there was a 45 percent drop in the uninsured rate for individuals earning more than $16,000 a year, the decrease was only 20 percent for those with lower incomes.
"The lowest-income Texans are almost four times more likely to be uninsured than those with higher incomes," said Vivian Ho, the chair in health economics at Rice's Baker Institute, a professor of economics at Rice and a professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "This coverage gap has grown since 2013 primarily because the ACA Marketplace allows households above the federal poverty level to buy health insurance using subsidies. Those same levels of discounts are not available to Texans with incomes below the federal poverty level."
Individuals who earn below $16,000 are able to enroll in Medicaid in the 31 states that opted to expand Medicaid. In Texas, those same individuals are not eligible for Medicaid coverage because state leaders chose not to accept federal funding for Medicaid expansion.
"Unless Texas participates in an expanded Medicaid program or develops some other mechanism for covering the lowest-income Texans, the number who remain uninsured is not likely to change," Ho said. "Right now, those at the lowest incomes must rely on health care that is highly subsidized by county and state tax dollars, or get by without needed health care."
The 31 percent decrease in the rate of uninsured Texans was similar to drops in other states that did not expand Medicaid coverage, but much lower than the 53 percent average decrease in states that did expand Medicaid coverage, the report found.
The report is the 11th in a series on the implementation of the ACA in Texas co-authored by Marks and Ho.
The Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) is a quarterly survey of adults ages 18-64 that began in 2013. Today's report is a summary of data extracted from the HRMS Surveys in Texas administered between September 2013 and March 2015.
INFORMATION:
The survey is designed to provide timely information on implementation issues under the ACA and to document changes in health insurance coverage and related health outcomes. The Baker Institute and the Episcopal Health Foundation are partnering to fund and report on key factors about Texans obtained from an expanded, representative sample of Texas residents (HRMS-Texas).
The HRMS was developed by the Urban Institute, conducted by GfK and jointly funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Urban Institute. The analyses and conclusions based on HRMS-Texas are those of the authors and do not represent the view of the Urban Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or the Ford Foundation.
For more information or to schedule an interview with Marks, contact Brian Sasser, director of communications at the Episcopal Health Foundation, at bsasser@episcopalhealth.org or 832-795-9404.
To schedule an interview with Ho, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.
Photo courtesy of thinkstockphotos.com/Rice University.
Related materials:
Full survey report: http://bakerinstitute.org/research/effects-affordable-care-act-health-insurance-coverage-texas-march-2015
The Episcopal Health Foundation: http://www.episcopalhealth.org
Marks bio: http://www.episcopalhealth.org/en/about/staff
Ho bio: http://bakerinstitute.org/experts/vivian-ho
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
The Episcopal Health Foundation was established through the 2013 transfer of the St. Luke's Episcopal Health System by the Episcopal Diocese of Texas to Catholic Health Initiatives. With more than $1.2 billion in estimated assets, The Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that operates as a supporting organization of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. The Foundation works to improve the health and well-being of the 10 million people in the 57 counties of the Diocese. EHF has developed a transformative approach to philanthropy that supports the Foundation's role to be a catalyst to change. Specifically, EHF aims to invest in Diocesan engagement, organizations and communities that can help strengthen the health system for everyone. The Foundation is committed to being an informed, accountable, collaborative, health-focused philanthropy.
Founded in 1993, Rice University's Baker Institute ranks among the top 10 university-affiliated think tanks in the world. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute's strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows, Rice University faculty scholars and staff, coupled with its outreach to the Rice student body through fellow-taught classes -- including a public policy course -- and student leadership and internship programs. Learn more about the institute at http://www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute's blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.
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