NYT: Immigrants And Low Wage Workers Benefiting The Most From Obamacare

FILE - This March 1, 2014 file photo shows part of the website for HealthCare.gov, seen in Washington. President Barack Obama’s health care law has become a tale of two Americas. States that fully embraced the law... FILE - This March 1, 2014 file photo shows part of the website for HealthCare.gov, seen in Washington. President Barack Obama’s health care law has become a tale of two Americas. States that fully embraced the law’s coverage expansion are experiencing a significant drop in the share of their residents who remain uninsured, according to an extensive new poll released Tuesday. States whose leaders still object to “Obamacare” are seeing much less change. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, cumulatively based on tens of thousands of interviews, found a drop of 4 percentage points in the share of uninsured residents for states that adopted the law’s Medicaid expansion and either built or helped run their own online insurance markets. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File) MORE LESS
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Immigrants — and specifically, Hispanic immigrants — are among those benefiting the most from Obamacare, a New York Times analysis published Sunday said. The Times’ report on the first full year of Affordable Care Act implementation found that low-wage workers also saw their uninsured rates decrease sharply, as did part-time workers and those with only high school degrees.

“The analysis shows how the law lifted some of the most vulnerable citizens,” the Times reported.

According to the Times report, nearly a third of the increase in insured rates for adults came from the Hispanic community, which makes up only 17 percent of the U.S. population. It attributed the growth in the Hispanic insured rate in part to the legal immigrants who were able to receive insurance because of the law (Obamacare does not provide coverage to undocumented immigrants), some of whom are legal non-citizens.

However, the decision by some states to not expand Medicaid has limited the gains of minority groups and particularly the gains of African-Americans, as about 60 percent of poor blacks live in non-Medicaid expansion states, the Times said.

The Times analysis is based on census data from 2014, which allowed the paper to break down insured rates by race, education, occupation, immigration status, and family structure.

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Notable Replies

  1. Thanks Obama.

    (mock derision)

  2. “The analysis shows how the law lifted some of the most vulnerable citizens,” the Times reported.

    ========================================

    Shame on those sellout establishment moderate Democrats. Forever shame. We need a Revolution!

  3. Interesting. I specifically remember back to 2013 and the trolls on this site were going on relentlessly that the ACA would collapse under its own weight.

    Didn’t happen. Now, it’s pretty much enshrined in the body politic as is SS and Medicare.

  4. If/when a Democratic secures the White House it will become permenantly embedded. Now of course (the next two years) will be the time to pivot to a robust public option within the ACA framework. Push to allow Medicare to negotiate pharma prices outside the United States, and other initiates to build, expand and improve the ACA.

  5. Avatar for jcs jcs says:

    Next order of business. Educating them on the merits of voting, not just for the president, but also down ticket, congress.

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