Obamacare Drives Uninsured Rate to Record Low
With the number of Americans lacking health insurance in decline, the rate of uninsured Americans has hit a record low, reaching levels not seen since the National Center for Disease Statistics began keeping records in 1972.
In the first quarter of 2015, 9.2 percent of all Americans were uninsured, according to new data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, down from 11.5 percent in 2014. The total number of uninsured Americans fell by 7 million over the past year, from 36 million in 2014 to 29 million in the first three months of 2015.
The largest declines were seen among adults who were poor or near-poor, suggesting that the Affordable Care Act was responsible for the most significant gains in coverage. Both groups dropped from uninsured rates near 50 percent in 2010 to 28 percent among poor adults and 23.8 percent among near-poor adults in 2015.
While Democrats are citing data as evidence that the Affordable Care Act is working, Republicans will likely argue that the reduction is being driven by an improving economy and a steadily declining unemployment rate.
Arkansas and Kentucky continue to record the most noticeable reductions in uninsured rates since Obamacare took effect at the beginning of 2013, according to a new report by Gallup. Texas is the only state to still have an uninsured rate higher than 20 percent.
Stat of the Day: 0.2%
The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley tweets: “In order to raise enough revenue to start paying down the debt, Trump would need tariffs to be ~4% of GDP. They're currently 0.2%.”
Read Tankersley’s full breakdown of why tariffs won’t come close to eliminating the deficit or paying down the national debt here.
Number of the Day: 44%
The “short-term” health plans the Trump administration is promoting as low-cost alternatives to Obamacare aren’t bound by the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to spend a substantial majority of their premium revenues on medical care. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of short-term plans, according to Axios, which provided this interesting detail on just how profitable this type of insurance can be: “United’s short-term plans paid out 44% of their premium revenues last year for medical care. ACA plans have to pay out at least 80%.”
Number of the Day: 4,229
The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers on Wednesday updated their database of false and misleading claims made by President Trump: “As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.”
The tally, which works out to an average of almost 7.6 false or misleading claims a day, includes 432 problematics statements on trade and 336 claims on taxes. “Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history,” the Post says.
Number of the Day: $3 Billion
A new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services finds that Medicare’s prescription drug program could have saved almost $3 billion in 2016 if pharmacies dispensed generic drugs instead of their brand-name counterparts, Axios reports. “But the savings total is inflated a bit, which HHS admits, because it doesn’t include rebates that brand-name drug makers give to [pharmacy benefit managers] and health plans — and PBMs are known to play games with generic drugs to juice their profits.”
Chart of the Day: Public Spending on Job Programs
President Trump announced on Thursday the creation of a National Council for the American Worker, charged with developing “a national strategy for training and retraining workers for high-demand industries,” his daughter Ivanka wrote in The Wall Street Journal. A report from the president’s National Council on Economic Advisers earlier this week made it clear that the U.S. currently spends less public money on job programs than many other developed countries.
