More than 16,000 Kentucky children gained health insurance since the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky multiyear study on how ACA implementation is impacting Kentuckians.
The study found that the uninsured rate for Kentucky’s children dropped to 4.3 percent in 2014, the first year subsidized health insurance could be purchased under the reform law. More than 10 percent of private insurance on Kynect, the state insurance exchange, covers children. These rates are “much higher than the national averages,” says the release.
Researchers attributed the increase in coverage to the tax-credit subsidies that are available to those who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but still can’t afford the full cost of private health insurance. They also cited outreach efforts by Kynect, and parents enrolling their children in coverage when they themselves enrolled.
The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky has contracted with State Health Access Data Assistance Center, a health policy research institute at the University of Minnesota, to conduct the series of studies.
From Kentucky Health News, an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.
It is important for Kentucky employers to realize that they can jeopardize this expanded coverage for their lower income employees’ children by offering to pay for even part of the cost of out-of-pocket expenses or other insurance options.