Ten states have uninsured rates below 5 percent. What are they doing right?
Universal health care remains an unrealized dream for the United States. But in some parts of the country, the dream has drawn closer to a reality in the 13 years since the Affordable Care Act passed.
Overall, the number of uninsured Americans has fallen from 46.5 million in 2010, the year President Barack Obama signed his signature health care law, to about 26 million today. The US health system still has plenty of flaws — beyond the 8 percent of the population who are uninsured, far higher than in peer countries, many of the people who technically have health insurance still find it difficult to cover their share of their medical bills. Nevertheless, more people enjoy some financial protection against health care expenses than in any previous period in US history.
My definition of Universal Healthcare and this new narrative of it meaning “as long as a person has insurance” are not the same. Health Insurance in the United States is either tied to your job or you pay out of pocket for it and that can be more than a house payment every month. Let’s also not forget about deductibles, copays, and max out of pocket before insurance will even kick in for their 70% to 80%.
Exactly.
Health insurance =/= health care
If someone has to spend $5000 on health care before seeing any benefit from insurance, then they probably don’t have decent health care. They have protection against catastrophic health problems, but not much else.
Having health insurance does not mean having “good” health insurance. You can have a pretty shitty plan and still be paying for 90% of your healthcare.
Massachusetts Medicaid (called MassHealth) is the single best health insurance plan I have ever had in my entire adult life. I genuinely wish I could opt out of my trash United HealthCare plan that my employer provides and go back on MassHealth instead.
I mean, except for the part where Massachusetts is the one that started the trend in the first place, and it was Mitt Romney who came up with the plan. There was a time, long ago, children, when there were Republicans who wanted to govern instead of just destroy.
Those times are long gone, of course.
Just wanted to say your profile pic makes me miss neverwinter. Wish they’d make another
