The percentage of Texans without health insurance has dropped by 30 percent since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect, cutting the state’s uninsured rate below 1999 levels. That’s one of the conclusions of a new report by the Episcopal Health Foundation and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The report found the uninsured rate among Texas adults dropped from 26 percent in September 2013 to 18 percent in March 2016. Researchers also discovered a steady decline in the uninsured rate for every age, ethnic and income-level group across the state. The report found that Texans between the ages of 50 and 64 experienced the largest decrease in their percentage of uninsured—plummeting from 21 percent to 10 percent since the ACA went into effect. The percentage of uninsured Texans with annual incomes between $16,000 and $47,000 dropped by more than 42 percent. Researchers said that while it’s evident the ACA has helped drop the uninsured rate in Texas, it’s also clear that a significant number of Texans with the lowest incomes remain uninsured. The report found that 46 percent of Texans earning less than $16,000 a year don’t have health insurance. According to the report, the “coverage gap” affects mostly people of color in working families and was recently estimated by the Kaiser Family Foundation to include 766,000 Texans. The Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) is a quarterly survey of adults ages 18-64 that began in 2013.
Contact: Brian Sasser
Phone: 832.795.9404
Email: bsasser@episcopalhealth.org