Uninsured Healthcare rate hits an all-time low; HHS taking a victory lap

This showed up in my In Box today. Andrew Sprung at xpostfactoid is reporting on the impact of the American Rescue Plan impact healthcare. “U.S. uninsured rate hits an all-time low; Biden’s HHS takes a victory lap, ” xpostfactoid

by Andrew Sprung

The low rate is because of Biden and Dem’s American Rescue Plan which “enhanced Marketplace subsidies, the continuous enrollment provision in Medicaid, several recent state Medicaid expansions, and substantial enrollment outreach by the Biden-Harris Administration in 2021- 2022.”

As Xpostfactoid points out “Biden’s HHS took a victory lap yesterday, announcing the national uninsured rate was 8.0% for all ages and at an all-time low in the first quarter of 2022. Since the fourth quarter of 2020, the uninsured rate has dropped by 2.7 percentage both for ages 18-64 and for children, according to the ASPE* brief.”

None of this is a congressionally mandated single payer program which have the 4 elements of Single Payer should have. It is short term gains which will have to be approved again.

I lifted the bar charts from “KFF How the American Rescue Plan Act Affects Subsidies for Marketplace Shoppers and People Who Are Uninsured”

In Figure 2, you can see the number of people who became eligible under the American Rescue Plan.

Figure 3 (below) breaks out the monthly premium per person.

Figure 4 (below) breaks out the population in each category. This is relatively simple stuff. I am not going to dwell on this.

There are issues with getting Medicaid after a certain age much of it dealing with LTC expenses. States can and do collect on the estates of people greater than 55 treated by Medicaid. This occurs after death. I will get into this at another time. For now, Biden’s plan has worked as hoped

xpostfactoid: “U.S. uninsured rate hits an all-time low; Biden’s HHS takes a victory lap; xpostfactoid claims prepostfactoid credit“

xpostfactoid: “On climbing out of the ACA coverage gap“

“How the American Rescue Plan Act Affects Subsidies for Marketplace Shoppers and People Who Are Uninsured” | KFF