The New York Times mapped out the uninsured in the United States, and one interesting pattern was hard to ignore.
So why aren’t more people signing up for health care under Obamacare? If you check out this new map from the New York Times, you may have your answer.
The Times helpfully gathered up the data on the uninsured and created a regional map showing which areas had high numbers of insured individuals and which didn’t, and the pattern is unmistakable: districts that didn’t vote for Obama didn’t seem to care for Obamacare either, according to a New York Times report.
The uninsured map sure resembles an election results map, but instead of Republican districts they’re uninsured districts, with the highest numbers of uninsured located in the South and the Southwest, heavily Republican areas.
Meanwhile, the Northeast and upper Midwest — Democratic strongholds — showed the highest insured rates, with the percentage of uninsured dipping into the single digits, probably due to the fact that the Affordable Care Act isn’t frowned upon there.
The map also shows some improvements in ACA coverage nationwide, with states like Pennsylvania and Indiana — which had been slow to expand Medicaid — showing improvements with uninsured rates. Meanwhile, in states like Mississippi, there’s actually fewer people who have health insurance compared to previous years.
Opposition to President Obama’s policies, especially the Affordable Care Act, have certainly slowed enrollment and resulted in higher numbers of insured than the administration had hoped. His lack of popularity in Republican leaning districts seems to translate into lower participation via Obamacare.
The map does indicate drastic changes since 2013, when only 10 states had a percentage of residents who were uninsured that was lower than 9 percent. That has declined significantly to where only the South and the Southwest have those numbers, and everywhere else in the country is covered through some type of health insurance.
Open enrollment is beginning again, marking another important period for Obamacare and another litmus test for its performance.
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