The candidates who are running for president in 2016 will test whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) health coverage expansion programs have had any noticeable effect on the electorate.
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Dan Witters, an analyst at Gallup, has raised questions about the impact of the PPACA-related effects on uninsured rates by releasing a state-by-state analysis of how the uninsured rates measured by their surveys changed between 2013, before major PPACA coverage expansion programs took effect, and the first half of 2015.
PPACA watchers are debating how stable the coverage expansion programs, and the current effects of the programs, will be.
At this point, Witters says, the effects are obvious. He found a drop in the uninsured rate in every state but Wyoming, and the apparent increase there — to 18.2 percent, from 16.6 percent — is based on a very small sample and is not statistically significant.
See also: PPACA’s popularity scares Republicans, witness says
The uninsured rate dropped to an average of 8.9 percent of the total state population, from 16 percent, in the states that adopted both the PPACA Medicaid expansion program and the PPACA public exchange program.
The rate dropped to an average of 13.4 percent, from 18.7 percent, in the other states.
Another way to look at those shifts is that 7.1 percent of the residents of the states that adopted both types of PPACA coverage expansion programs, and 5.3 percent of the residents of the other states, now have health coverage tied to PPACA coverage expansion programs.
See also: Hospital chains can’t move home-state Republicans on PPACA