Talking Healthcare Insurance and One State

What occurred over the last few days in our household was a review of our Medicare Supplemental healthcare insurance (backs up Medicare). We have Plan N which is a good plan. We pay the Part B deductible (if needed) of Medicare which is $257 this year. The rest of Part A and B costs are covered up to certain limits.

As it turns out, we were paying ~ twice what we should be paying if we went with a different company. This year we incurred a rather large increase (18%) for United Heathcare Supplemental. I called and asked what was up with the increase. Did not really get an answer explaining it. This convinced me to shop our needs with other companies for Supplemental.

The plans for Supplemental are all standardized for what they offer. Plan N for United Healthcare is the same as what is offered by Cigma, Humana, Aetna, etc. What you are shopping is price. The price with a new company was ~ 50% less. We are waiting to see if we will be accepted. Moving on . . .

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Speaking of regular healthcare. Which state has the “largest share of Americans under 65 without health insurance according to new Census Bureau data.” This is so painfully obvious.

This state experiences a significant inflow of high-income individuals and households, particularly in its larger metropolitan areas. The inflow is driven by factors such as a growing economy, a lower cost of living as compared to other states, and the presence of major industries like technology, oil and gas, and aerospace.

The median household income is ~$76,300, and the median income of the top 1% is ~$762,090. Visual Capitalist. This state has one other distinction also.

“Texas has highest rate of uninsured people,” Axios Dallas

Texas has the country’s largest share of Americans under 65 without health insurance. This is according to new Census Bureau data. Being a rather wealthy state, why should it have so large a population uninsured?

Why it matters: Nearly 19% of Texans are uninsured as of 2022. This is a big improvement over 2006, when 27.6% of Texans were uninsured. It still is nearly double the national uninsured rate of 9.5%.

The uninsured rate fell in 627 U.S. counties and increased in 23 between 2021 and 2022 as more Americans were trending towards being covered rather than not.

Yes, but: More recent and preliminary data shows an uptick in the overall uninsured rate as states cut Medicaid rolls and unemployment rises according to Axios’ reports:

• Texas, for example, has removed more than 2 million people from its Medicaid program since April 2023, mostly for procedural reasons.

Collin (10.6%), Denton (11.5%) and Rockwall (11.2%) counties have some of the lowest percentages of uninsured Texans. However . . .

In Dallas County, more than 528,000 residents are uninsured, or 23.6% of the population.

• In Tarrant County, more than 337,000 residents are uninsured, or 18.2%.

Stunning stat: Around 232,000 Hidalgo County residents along the Mexico-U.S. border don’t have insurance. This is 30.2% of the county’s population and the highest percentage of a populous county in the state.

Zoom out: Other than Texas, Oklahoma (14.3%), Wyoming (14.1%) and Florida (13.9%) have the highest share of uninsured residents among U.S. states and Washington, D.C.

• Texas, Wyoming and Florida are also among the small group of holdouts that never adopted Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

• Massachusetts (2.9%), Washington, D.C. (3.1%) and Hawai’i (4.3%) have the lowest.

And “Texas ranks No. 2 for where high-earning households are moving to as one study shows,” (KXAN Austin). Now would anyone have thought this would be the case?

The state offers the environment many higher income people would appreciate. No state income tax, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest individuals, dependence upon sales tax for revenue, no wealth tax, etc. So yes, there is certainly a tilt towards favoring the wealthy in Texas

Just some thoughts