Obamacare is working in California

Peter Lee, Executive Director of California’s insurance exchange, told the Times that California has benefitted from a large number of enrollees who are in relatively good health.

But those separate studies are also underscoring the challenges that health-care reform advocates will face in getting the remaining uninsured people-who are disproportionately Hispanic in both states-health coverage in coming years.

Before this time, an earlier study indicated about 58% uninsured Californians registered for the Obamacare coverage after it first rolled out.

Latest survey commissioned by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a non-profit organization that focuses on health care issues in the United States, researchers found that out of the 2,100 uninsured Californians they observed before the expansion of health care under Obamacare in 2014, there are now only 32 percent of them still uninsured.

Nevertheless, both the state-run exchange and Medi-Cal need to be improved as too many patients reported that their access to care is severely limited by the lack of health care providers and hospitals.

“We are encouraged by Covered California’s proposed rates for the 2016 plan year and pleased that consumers in California will continue to have access to quality, affordable health coverage”, said Kevin Counihan, CEO of the Health Insurance Marketplaces.

Mollyann Brodie, who is in charge of Kaiser’s public surveys, said the results of the study “certainly suggests that California has been incredibly successful at enrolling the uninsured”.

The largest portion of uninsured Americans are those who entered the country illegally.

A report published recently reveals that over two-thirds of adults in California who were uninsured prior to the Affordable Care Act, the official name of Obamacare, now have coverage. Around 44 percent of those observed cited this as the primary reason. Regarding customer satisfaction, 86 percent of the newly insured said that their healthcare needs are being met “very well” or “somewhat well”, as compared to the lukewarm 51 percent share in 2013.

In the last two years, 1.3 million people purchased in a health insurance plan through Covered California, while 4 million more received coverage through Medi-Cal. 26% of the rest were eligible for Medi-Cal & 25% were eligible for Covered California’s subsidized plans. The survey found that whites and Latinos signed up in almost equal proportions, 79 percent for whites and 74 percent for Latinos (after excluding those Latinos who would be ineligible for ACA benefits due to their immigration status). But the bill failed to become law.

This result is not only gratifying for AFA supporter, but it also represent an increase over last year’s reading, which showed a 10 per cent lower statistic.