2016 Health Insurance Enrollment: Private Coverage Declined, Medicaid Growth Slowed

[jmyrlefuller]

http://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/2016-health-insurance-enrollment-private-coverage-declined-medicaid?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thf-tw

Authors: Edmund Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski
July 26, 2017

Private health insurance enrollment decreased by 587,000 individuals during 2016 while Medicaid enrollment increased by 2.25 million individuals. For the three-year period (2014–2016) during which key provisions of the Affordable Care Act have been in force, the net increase in private and public health insurance enrollment was 15.7 million individuals. Of that total, private plan enrollment saw a 1.7 million net increase, while public program enrollment saw a 14 million net increase. In 2016 unsubsidized individual-market enrollment decreased by 840,000, while enrollment in subsidized exchange coverage increased by only 272,000, and employer-plan enrollment was almost unchanged. Taken together, those trends are a disturbing indicator that Obamacare may be shifting from insuring the uninsured to un-insuring the previously insured.

[dfwgator]

Everything is going according to plan.