Wonkblog has a great post today showing two maps: the first shows where the uninsured live who make less than 138% of the poverty level, which shows who could benefit from the expansion of Medicaid, and the second shows uninsured people who make less than 400% of the poverty level, which shows who could benefit from Obamacare’s subsidies.
The first thing I notice when I saw these maps was Minnesota, and how few uninsured people we have. Bravo, Minnesota? Truth be told, our state has long been a leader in terms of health coverage, such as creating MinnesotaCare in 1992 and expanding it since then. As a result, Minnesota has few uninsured people compared to the national average, although that rate is creeping up a bit.
Second, though, is the fact that the states with the highest proportion of uninsured people tend to be states that are rejecting Obamacare, such as Texas. More broadly, states that supported Obama in 2012 also tend to have low rates of uninsurance, and the converse is also true, although there are certainly exceptions. It’s almost as if those states that support Obamacare are the ones that need it least, but want to expand insurance to the rest of the country.
Truthfully, there is not much that is unexpected in these maps. What I’ll never understand, though, is why places that have the least insurance seem to think it’s not a problem.