Althouse: "Four percent of Americans are newly insured this year, reporting that they have health insurance now but did not last year."

April 17, 2014

"Four percent of Americans are newly insured this year, reporting that they have health insurance now but did not last year."

"A little more than half of that group, or 2.1% of the U.S. population, got their new insurance through health exchanges."

25 comments:

Brando said...: With an achievement like that--2%!--how can anyone deny that this brilliant president is going to join the pantheon of Lincoln, FDR, and Jesus?

I'm sure Andrew Sullivan is already gushing over this news. Hasn't it been at least a day before one of his trollish "meep meep" posts?; 4/17/14, 8:44 AM
Bob Ellison said...: And what were the poll results in April 2013?

How many adults get "newly insured" every year?

We have about 300 million people in America. About 2.5 million die every year. How many new enrollees does it take just to keep up?

Four percent of Americans represents about 12 million. That's good news to Obamacare. Why didn't they talk 12 million, rather than 7.1 million?

This is all bullshit.; 4/17/14, 8:56 AM
Kylos said...: "However, the calculation of the newly insured does not take into account those who may have been insured in 2013 but not in 2014."

That's kind of important to know.; 4/17/14, 8:57 AM
David said...: Totally worth it. All the cost. The disruption. Totally. No other program or effort could have come close to this outstanding result.; 4/17/14, 9:01 AM
Wince said...: And what fraction of that 2.1% getting their coverage through the exchanges were subsidized, either partially or fully through Medicaid?; 4/17/14, 9:19 AM
garage mahal said...: Republicans get to go back to their districts and talk about.....how healthcare sucks for their constituents, and why foregoing Medicaid expansion is still a great idea because Obama. Well played.; 4/17/14, 9:20 AM
ron winkleheimer said...: What Bob Ellison said. Some percentage of people in the US were going to be newly insured, regardless.

I came from a family that did not have health insurance. Parents did not have jobs that provided it, we did not have enough money purchase it.

So we only went to the doctor (yes we had a family doctor) when it was necessary and paid for it out of pocket.

At 17 I joined the army (yes, you can join the army at 17, if your guardian will allow it) and bingo, I had health insurance. Dental too.; 4/17/14, 9:27 AM
SteveR said...: What about the 30-40 million people who were uninsured? Wasn't that the purpose?

2009/2010 was not that long ago, I seem to remember these rationalizations.; 4/17/14, 9:33 AM
Renee said...: How many were forced to take their employers insurance?; 4/17/14, 9:45 AM
Levi Starks said...: Then I guess all the lies and shredding of the constitution were like totally worth it.
Lets fix something else now.; 4/17/14, 9:48 AM
B said...: What's the churn rate? People are going on and off insurance just like they churn between employment and unemployment.

Is it standard for 2% of the population in one year to acquire insurance the next, and vice versa?; 4/17/14, 10:05 AM
TreeJoe said...: I've known Gallup tends to support causes like ACA before, but this was the worst case of statistical mal-representation I've seen them do.

All of the critical context is removed. How many lost insurance from the year before? How many newly insured are because of medicaid? What did prior year results look like for newly insured? What % of those claim to have bought private insurance and received a subsidy? What is the self-reported rate that bought private insurance BECAUSE of the exchanges/subsidies?

I could go on.; 4/17/14, 10:25 AM
RecChief said...: how do we really know?

given the way in which this administration has made pretty much any and all numbers coming out of it highly suspect, my suspicion is that the true data isn't favorable to this administration.

But Pravda says it's working; 4/17/14, 11:01 AM
RecChief said...: @TreeJoe

It's the Administrations goal to strip the critical context away.

How else would we proles know whether or not it was good for us.

Seriously, I remember 5-6 million responsible people, who had purchased health insurance on their own, losing their insurance. So how many got their "new" insurance thorugh the exchanges? went on medicaid? we don't know and won't ever know.

But we've always been at war with EastAsia; 4/17/14, 11:08 AM
cubanbob said...: Republicans get to go back to their districts and talk about.....how healthcare sucks for their constituents, and why foregoing Medicaid expansion is still a great idea because Obama. Well played."

Medicaid expansion is a great idea for whom? Not for private sector taxpayers and the privately insured. Still you actually proposed an excellent idea for the Republicans ( if they had the brains and stones) with respects to Medicaid: make Medicaid the only healthcare option for all federal, state and local government employees and deduct 15.9% of the paycheck to cover this expanded Medicaid. Now that's a healthcare reform Republicans can win with.; 4/17/14, 11:41 AM
RecChief said...: say, a majority of Americans say they don't believe what Obama says.

And I will point out that the survey was conducted jointly by a Democrat pollster and a Republican pollster; 4/17/14, 12:20 PM
Anonymous said...: None of these polls and numbers matter. The only time these things matter is when we don't know. For example, we don't know, until the day of the election, how many people prefer candidate A vs candidate B. Or we don't know if people are for or against law X. Not until election day. This makes polling useful.

But in the case of obamacare, we know. We are all personally effected by it. We have friends, family, ourselves, someone we know that is being hurt by obamacare. And not just hurt a little.

The Democrats think its helping them to lie. Sadly, its hard to believe someone that is telling you repeatedly, "you're not being tortured!" As they turn the screws tighter and tighter.; 4/17/14, 12:35 PM
Alex said...: As always the GOP looks horrible on optics.; 4/17/14, 1:30 PM
n.n said...: Reform addresses neither affordability nor availability, but more people -- not all -- will have medical insurance. I wonder how long we can continue to devalue capital and labor in order to treat symptoms and create a perception of prosperity. How many boys and girls will lose their lives in order to create a manageable problem set?; 4/17/14, 2:18 PM
n.n said...: Alex:

The optics are clouded and distorted.

That said, the Republicans do need to address structural disparities, even when they are not of their own creation, or in their constituents' districts. They may perform well at local and state levels, but the problem set is different at the national level, and in characteristically democratic districts.; 4/17/14, 2:22 PM
Michael said...: So, we have polls to tell us the economics of a government program. Nice. Perhaps we can dismantle the SEC and the accounting firms and the accounting boards and simply run polls to tell us how publicly traded companies are performing. And while we are at it let's dispense with the banking oversight groups and just run polls on the quality of the capital held by banks.; 4/17/14, 2:54 PM
Michael said...: Garage

And Democrats can go to their districts with this splendid 4% figure. Please. Do.; 4/17/14, 2:55 PM
Bob Ellison said...: President Obama is on the news live right now, talking mostly about how great "a law that's working" is and how the American people don't want to hear from the "other side" who don't like the law that's not working.; 4/17/14, 3:07 PM
Paul said...: 2.1 percent of 300 million (excluding illegals) is 6 million (if you believe them.)

But.. 5 to 10 million had their heath insurance cancelled due to Obamacare.

How many of them were 'newly insured'?

Yea there are lots of questions on this new stat. Just like everything else with Obamacare.; 4/17/14, 9:40 PM
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