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November 03, 2015 at 11:06 AM
The new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) coverage expansion efforts may be leaving some U.S. consumers with moderately high incomes cold.
Analysts at the Urban Institute and the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) have data on uninsured Americans with high, or relatively high, incomes in two new reports.
A team led by Matthew Buettgens, a mathematician at the Urban Institute, has published state-by-state data on the percentage of people who signed up for individual coverage through the PPACA public exchange system in a review of exchange signup rates.
PPACA provides rich individual insurance premium tax credit subsidies for low-income people but phases out the subsidies for higher-consumers who earn more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL).
The Urban Institute team found that only about 14 percent of eligible uninsured or underinsured people with incomes between 300 percent of the FPL and 400 percent of the FPL paid for PPACA exchange coverage this year nationwide. For all eligible uninsured people with incomes under 400 percent of FPL, the exchange plan signup rate has been about 46 percent.
At the state level, signup rates for people in the category for people with incomes from 300 percent of FPL to 400 percent of FPL have ranged from a low of 5.3 percent in Mississippi to a high of 24.2 percent in Maine.
See also: Private health insurers struggle to reach high earners
