Though there still is some question about just how many people now have employee health benefits as a result of the Affordable Care Act, a new poll suggests that states which have embraced health reform tend to have a lower uninsured rate.
Polling research firm Gallup recently analyzed to what extend states' respective uninsured levels have been affected in 2013 versus the first three months of 2014. For those 21 states that both expanded Medicaid eligibility and implemented an exchange run by local officials, the uninsured rate dropped 2.5 percent, from 16.1 percent last year to 13.6 percent currently.
For the remaining 29 states that did one of the two – or didn't do either – the number of uninsured residents dropped by an average of less than 1 percent, or 18.7 percent to 17.9 percent.
Dan Witters, director of Gallup's Healthways Well-Being Index, indicated that based on the polling results, the ACA appears to be doing what it was intended to do – enable more people to get covered.
"In turn, the states that have implemented two of the law's core mechanisms – Medicaid expansion and state health insurance exchanges – are realizing a rate of decline that is substantively greater than what is found among the remaining states that have not done so."
Still, many people aren't convinced that the health law is the reason for more people being insured. Some states opted to expand Medicaid before the ACA's implementation and others had coverage prior to the open enrollment period that were later canceled. There's also some question about how many people have actually paid for their premiums.
Less than one-quarter of U.S. voters thinks the health law has been a success, according to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey. Close to 85 percent said that it should either be changed or repealed.
