Kentucky uninsured rate down to 7.5% in December, report says

National rate is 11.7%

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (May 11, 2016) — The number of uninsured Kentuckians in December 2015 was 7.5 percent, down from 9 percent in June 2015, according to a report about the impact of the Affordable Care Act released today by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Nationally, 11.7 percent lacked health insurance as of December; the rate was 10.2 percent for the eight states surrounding Kentucky.

The report was created by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) at the University of Minnesota, and is part of a 34-month study funded by the Foundation.

Other highlights of the report include:

• Since December 2013, Kentucky’s uninsurance rate has dropped 12.9 percentage points, more than double the national decline of 5.6 percentage points. And while uninsurance rates remained relatively stable for the country as a whole and in neighboring states in 2015, Kentucky’s rate has continued to decline.
• During the third Open Enrollment Period, most kynect enrollees (60 percent) selected silver level health insurance plans. Compared to national enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplaces, Kentuckians selected more gold (11 percent vs. 6 percent) and bronze (27 percent vs. 23 percent) plans compared to enrollees nationwide. 
• Compared to the U.S. as a whole and each of its neighboring states, more of kynect’s customers (59 percent) returned to the Commonwealth’s Health Insurance Marketplace to select plans; 22 percent were automatically re-enrolled in plans. However, kynect saw a smaller share of new customers than the country overall (20 percent vs. 39 percent) or neighboring states.
• Medicaid covered 41,493 dental preventive services, 9,708 breast cancer screenings, 8,276 substance abuse treatment services, and 5,589 colorectal cancer screenings to enrollees age 19-64 during the fourth quarter of 2015. Most of these services were provided to beneficiaries covered under Medicaid expansion, rather than traditional Medicaid.
• While hospital care performed without payment has continued to drop for both urban and rural hospitals since 2014, rural hospitals observed slight increases in 2015.