Although millions of people have lost their jobs, the uninsured population has not increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. This may be due to the increase in public insurance options and subsidies. According to a new report.
From 2019 to April this year, the proportion of uninsured individuals nationwide has remained stable at around 11%.
Between March and April 2019, the proportion of adults reporting employer-sponsored insurance fell from 65% to 62.3%, a decrease of approximately 5.5 million. During the same period, the proportion of adults reporting public insurance increased from 13.6% to 17.5%, an increase of approximately 7.9 million adults.
The report was released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and used data from the Urban Institute’s Health Reform Monitoring Survey, a nationally representative survey of adults between 18 and 64 years of age. The data includes survey results in March 2019, March 2020/April 2020 and April 2021. 22,000 people responded to the survey.
With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government set up guardrails to help prevent insurance losses. Through the “Family First Coronavirus Response Act” passed last year, Congress froze withdrawal from the Medicaid program.
In addition, the Biden government has established a special registration period to give uninsured Americans the opportunity to register for insurance on the HealthCare.gov market.As of July 31, 2.5 million Americans Signed up. Those who purchase insurance directly from the Affordable Care Act market also Opportunity to get tax credits Pass the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act.
Although public coverage across the country has increased, states with expanded Medicaid programs have achieved greater benefits than states that have not expanded.
In expanded states, employer-sponsored insurance coverage has dropped from 67% in 2019 to 64.6% in 2021. Similarly, in the non-expanded state, this proportion dropped from 61.3% to 57.9%. Although the public coverage of both states has increased during this period, compared with non-expanded states (from 10.7% to 14.3%), the increase in expanded states is larger (from 14.9% to 19.2%).
Therefore, the uninsured rate varies between expanded and non-expanded states. From 2019 to 2021, the state’s -± rate of Medicaid expansion is about 8%. In non-expanded states, the ratio in 2021 (18.2%) is higher than in 2020 (16.5%) and 2019 (17.2%).
The author of the report wrote: “As the economy improves and the registration freeze is lifted (which is unlikely to happen before early 2022), maintaining the current uninsured rate will require protecting the insurance coverage of current and potential Medicaid participants.”
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