Uninsured numbers good news for state
Published 6:00 pm Sunday, September 22, 2019
Louisiana has more people with health care coverage than ever before, and that reality is definitely worth celebrating in a state that doesn’t always chalk up enviable records. The decision of Gov. John Bel Edwards to expand Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for low-income Americans, is credited for giving many Louisianans health care coverage for the first time.
The state’s uninsured rate dropped from 8.4 percent in 2017 to 8 percent in 2018. The Advocate said the Census Bureau in 2013 reported that Louisiana’s uninsured rate was 16.6 percent and it is less than half that now. It is one of 15 states that saw a drop in their uninsured population last year.
The newspaper said, “Beyond health care, experts said a drop in uninsured rates has implications for productivity and stability in a state that often falls on the bottom of all the ‘good’ lists and the top of all the ‘bad’ lists.”
Meanwhile, the number of Americans across the U.S. without health insurance rose for the first time in a decade. Nationally, 27.5 million people, or 8.5 percent, were without health insurance in 2018. That is up from 25.6 million in, or 7.9 percent, in 2017.
In the southeast, The Advocate said Louisiana is an island among states like Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma and Florida, all of which have uninsured rates between 12 percent and 17.7 percent.
Stacey Roussel, policy director for the Louisiana Budget Project that reports on how public policy affects low- and moderate-income families, said the low uninsured numbers say something is going right in Louisiana.
Although Medicaid expansion was a good move, things didn’t always go right in the beginning. Too many ineligible people were enrolled and the number on the rolls climbed to over 505,000 people. Thanks to a new computer system at the state Department of Health that is making quarterly rather than annual eligibility checks, that number is now down to just over 450,000.
Thanks to Medicaid expansion, those with coverage for the first time are being treated for previously undetected illnesses and they are allowed to see a doctor on a regular basis. That helps them keep better track of their medications.
Louisiana has 1.7 million people on Medicaid because of its high poverty numbers and health care is expensive. The program has its critics, and some of the criticism is justified, but Medicaid expansion was the right move for the state.
