The return of the doctor house call, By Mattie Quinn, September 28, 2017, Governing: “‘Do you hear that?’ asks Beth Hungate, as she walks into an apartment in the historic neighborhood of Richmond, Va., known as ‘the Fan.’ Hungate, a nurse practitioner at Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) medical center, is there to see a patient of hers, a woman named Luckie Locke. Locke has been in quite a bit of discomfort recently and requested that Hungate stop by. But as Hungate walks through the door, she notices an incessant beeping noise. Hungate scans the apartment for the source of the beeping; eventually she traces it to a carbon monoxide detector. She calls her clinical coordinator to get a nonemergency fire department truck to come by. ‘You see? I would have never known this if I wasn’t coming to her house,’ Hungate says…”
Tag: Affordable Care Act (ACA)
Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016
- How health-care reform affected America, in 51 graphs, By Philip Bump, September 14, 2017, Washington Post: “Last year, 8.6 percent of Americans lacked health insurance. Three years earlier, that figure was 14.5 percent, meaning that the rate dropped by 5.9 percentage points over the period that the Affordable Care Act went into effect, a 40 percent decline from the 2013 figure. In real terms, that’s about 19 million fewer people lacking health insurance, per estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau…”
- States with the highest and lowest uninsured rates, By Mattie Quinn, September 13, 2017, Governing: “As discussions about the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continue on Capitol Hill, at least one thing is certain: The law has led to a record number of people having health insurance. According to data released this week from the U.S. Census Bureau, only 8.8 percent of Americans were uninsured in 2016. That’s down from 13.3 percent in 2013, the year before much of the ACA took effect. Since then, every single state has seen their uninsured rate drop…”
- Obamacare keeps shrinking the ranks of N.J.’s uninsured, Census data shows, By Disha Raychaudhuri, September 12, 2017, NJ.com: “About 66,000 more people in New Jersey had health insurance in 2016 than the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The latest data shows that the number of uninsured N.J residents has continued to drop, a trend that policy analysts attribute to the success of the Affordable Care Act…”
- Uninsured rate continues to drop in Indiana under Obamacare, By Maureen Groppe, September 13, 2017, Indianapolis Star: “The number of Hoosiers without health insurance fell 41 percent after the coverage expansion elements of the Affordable Care Act went into effect, according to new federal data. The 8.1 percent of residents who still lacked insurance last year is now lower than the national 8.6 percent rate, the Census Bureau reported. But Indiana still has a higher share of its population uninsured than do its neighboring states, which expanded their Medicaid programs before Indiana did…”
- Young, low-income Kansans more likely to be uninsured than counterparts in other states, By Jim McLean, September 14, 2017, KCUR: “Low-income Kansans are less likely to have health insurance than their counterparts in other states, according to an analysis of new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The uninsured rate among Kansans living below the federal poverty level has been worse than the national rate for many years. But the gap has widened in recent years, mainly because of the state’s rejection of Medicaid expansion, said Robert St. Peter, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Kansas Health Institute…”
Health Insurance Coverage in the US
- More people remain insured since Obamacare, CDC says. But many pay more out of pocket, By Daniel Chang, August 29, 2017, Miami Herald: “More Americans had health insurance during the first three months of 2017 than before the Affordable Care Act became law in March 2010, according to the National Health Interview Survey released Tuesday — but more have coverage with high out-of-pocket costs, which can discourage patients from visiting the doctor and filling a prescription…”
- Bipartisan group of governors calls on Congress to shore up elements of Affordable Care Act, By Amy Goldstein, August 31, 2017, Washington Post: “A bipartisan group of governors is trying to jump-start efforts to strengthen private insurance under the Affordable Care Act, urging Congress to take prompt steps to stabilize marketplaces created by law while giving states more freedom from its rules…”