Nearly 90% of Uninsured Wisconsinites Meet the Income Standards for Help Getting Insurance under the ACA

Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau helps illustrate the importance of provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to improve access to affordable health insurance. The new Census Bureau database includes not only state-level statistics about the uninsured, but also county-by-county statistics on the number of children and non-elderly adults who were uninsured in 2010.

The new state and county-level figures are divided by income categories that shed light on the relevance of key parts of the ACA.  After studying the new state-level figures on the uninsured in Wisconsin, here are some of the things that we found particularly noteworthy:

• As WCCF health care analyst Sara Eskrich pointed out in a Wisconsin Public Radio story, Wisconsin slipped a little bit in national health insurance rankings in 2010 (dropping to 8th best), as other states have made new advances in improving coverage and outreach (especially for children). 
• Of the roughly 518,000 non-elderly Wisconsinites who were uninsured in 2010, about 88% were under 400% of the federal poverty level and would meet the income standards for getting subsidized health insurance under the ACA (beginning in 2014). 
• More specifically, about 40% of the non-elderly uninsured population was under 138% of the federal poverty level, which means that they would meet the income standard for BadgerCare eligibility if the state accepts the federal funding that would cover almost all of the cost of insuring newly-eligible adults up to that income level.  (See the pie chart below.)
• Almost half of the non-elderly uninsured population was between 138% and 400% of the poverty level, which is the income range to be eligible for subsidized coverage through the new health insurance exchanges.

The data released this week, known as Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE), produces estimates of health insurance coverage for states and all counties.  This is the third year that the Census Bureau has produced local data at this level of detail, by using a sophisticated computer model that combines data from the annual American Community Survey with extensive data from numerous other federal sources, including tax records and participation in public assistance programs. The 2010 SAHIE data is broken out in the following ways:

• by age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, and income categories at the state level; and 
• by age, sex, and income categories at the county level.

The Census Bureau will release 2011 data on the uninsured in mid-September. Although we’re eagerly looking forward to seeing the more current survey data, what we get in September won’t have data for many counties, and even at the state level it won’t have as much detail breaking out insurance status by income, age, race and gender.

Sometime in the next week or two WCCF will produce a couple of maps of the new county-level data, and we’ll post a follow-up blog at that time.

 Jon Peacock