Yesterday, the Commonwealth Fund released a report attempting to argue that low-income individuals will benefit if states expand their Medicaid programs under Obamacare. But in reality, the study made a more effective case against Obamacare than it did in favor of the law.
The Commonwealth report’s most revealing evidence comes in Exhibit 2, reproduced below. According to Commonwealth’s own survey data, fewer than one in 10 (9 percent) of Americans were always uninsured during the period 2011-2012. Among adults with incomes above 133 percent of the poverty level (just under $15,000 for a single person), only one in 20 (5 percent) Americans lacked health insurance for all of 2011 and 2012.
It’s a point worth emphasizing again: During a two-year period following the most severe economic downturn in generations, fewer than one in 10 Americans consistently lacked health insurance coverage. And some portion of that 9 percent consists of non-citizens, who are ineligible for most taxpayer-funded assistance programs anyway.
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