Gallup: Despite Obamacare Mandate, 13.4% of Americans Don’t Have Health Insurance
August 6, 2014 - 12:37 PM
Gallup: Despite Obamacare Mandate, 13.4% of Americans Don’t Have Health Insurance
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the Rose Garden, Apr. 1, 2014.
(CNSNews.com) – Although the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, required that all Americans obtain health insurance by the beginning of this year or else pay a penalty, a new Gallup survey shows that 13.4% of Americans are still not uninsured.
In Texas, according to Gallup, 24% of the people do not have health insurance.
In its telephone survey conducted Jan. 2-June 30, 2014, Gallup asked: “Do you have health insurance?”
While the percentage of people uninsured nationally declined from 17.3% in 2013 to 13.4% in the second quarter of 2014, reported Gallup, there are still many Americans who answered “no,” they do not have coverage.
Texas had the highest percent of uninsured at 24%. That was down slightly from 27% since the individual mandate went into effect on Jan. 1, reported Gallup. In Mississippi, 20.6% said they were uninsured. In Georgia, 20.2% said they had no health insurance.
Other states in which a high percentage of people told Gallup they did not have health insurance included:
Florida, 18.9%
Louisiana, 18.4%
Montana, 17.9%
Kansas, 17.6%
Oklahoma, 17.5%
Arizona, 17.2%
South Carolina, 16.8%
North Carolina, 16.7%
Idaho, 16.6%
California, 16.3%
Alaska, 16.2%
Nevada, 16.0%
In Illinois, President Barack Obama’s home state, 12.3% of the people do not have health insurance.
Under Obamacare, nearly all Americans were required, as of Jan. 1, 2014, to have either kept their existing health insurance, obtained new coverage, received an exemption, or paid a fine every month they did not carry coverage. For those who purchased new coverage, the law says it must have started no later than May 1, 2014.
For its 2014 survey, Gallup conducted telephone interviews with a random sample of 88,678 adults, age 18 and older, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/gallup-despite-obamacare-mandate-134-americans-don-t-have-health
