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If the health care reform law were implemented fully this year, the nation’s uninsured rate would drop more than 10 percentage points and nearly 28 million nonelderly U.S. residents would receive coverage, according to an analysis released Tuesday.
The research conducted for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based research organization, estimates that 2011 implementation of the law would reduce the number of uninsured younger than 65 to 23.2 million from 50.9 million. Correspondingly, the uninsured rate would decline to 8.7% from 18.9%.
Provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that will have the greatest impact in reducing the number of uninsured expanding the Medicaid program and providing federal premium subsidies for the lower-income uninsured. Those provisions go into effect in 2014.
While the nonelderly uninsured rate would decline in all 50 U.S. states, it would vary widely, according to the analysis.
For example, the uninsured rate in Texas, which the Urban Institute estimates at 29.7%the nation’s highest, would decline to 12.8%, while the uninsured rate in New Mexico would fall to 12% from 28%.
On the other hand, the health care reform law would have little impact on the uninsured rate in Massachusetts, where a 2006 state law already has achieved near-universal coverage.
The analysis estimates that the percentage of Massachusetts residents younger than 65 without coverage would be 2.9% with full implementation of the federal reform law this year. That would be only a slight decline from the current uninsured rate, which the researchers estimated at 4%.
Other states where the uninsured rate would fall by relatively small percentages include Hawaii, where the rate would decline to 4.8% from 9.5%, and Iowa, where the uninsured rate would decline to 6.6% from 11.3%.
The report is available at http://www.rwjf.org/coverage/product.jsp?id=71952&cid=XEM_749842.