Amid news that the country’s uninsured rate has fallen to its lowest level in years, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) claimed this week that the opposite is true in his state.
Huelskamp told his constituents on Monday at a town hall meeting in Selina, Kan. that the rate of uninsured actually went up in the state following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
“It’s hard to get accurate numbers on anything,” the tea party congressman said. “But the numbers we see today is that — as I understand them — we believe there are more people uninsured today in Kansas than there were before the president’s health care plan went into effect. And I thought the goal was to bring more people into insurance.”
A poll from Gallup last week found that the share of uninsured Americans dropped to 15.6 percent in the first quarter of 2014, the lowest rate since 2008. Gallup’s polling also showed that the states that have embraced Obamacare have seen a much larger drop in their uninsured rates.
Kansas rejected the health care law’s Medicaid expansion and opted not to set up its own state-based exchange.
