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October 08, 2015 at 11:11 AM
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) may have been highly effective at getting U.S. residents who earn more than $90,000 per year to get health coverage.
Stephanie Marken, an analyst at Gallup, has published data supporting that conclusion in a comparison of results from telephone interviews with about 45,600 U.S. adults conducted from July 1 through Sept. 30 with results from similar interviews conducted in late 2013, before major PPACA coverage expansion and subsidy programs came to life.
The surveys were sponsored by Healthways, a health care management company.
Between the fourth quarter of 2013 and the third quarter of 2015, the likelihood that a survey participant would report being uninsured fell 32 percent. The overall uninsured rate dropped 5.5 percentage points, to 11.6 percent.
For people with annual incomes under $36,000, the likelihood of being uninsured decreased 28 percent, and the uninsured rate fell to 22.2 percent.
The likelihood of being uninsured fell just 21 percent for people with annual incomes from $36,000 to $89,999. In the latest quarter, those participants’ uninsured rate was 9.2 percent.
For people with $90,000 or more in annual income, the likelihood of being uninsured plunged 48 percent. Their uninsured rate sank to 3 percent.
PPACA provides cash that states can use to expand access to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for low-income residents. It also provides subsidies that moderately low-income consumers can use to buy and use private health coverage through the new PPACA health insurance exchange system.
