WFPL News Louisville
By: Lisa Gillespie
The number of people who gained insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, was the largest in rural areas and small towns across the country. And Kentucky saw one of the biggest gains in health insurance in its small towns and rural areas. According to a new report out this week from the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, prior to 2008 about 35 percent of people nationwide didn’t have health insurance; now, only about 16 percent of people don’t have coverage. States that didn’t expand Medicaid — like Georgia, Texas, Florida and Mississippi — have the highest uninsured rates in small towns and rural areas, according to the report. Joan Alker, the executive director of the Center for Children and Families, said the expansion of Medicaid has been especially important for people in rural areas who did not have health insurance. In many parts of the country, more people in cities had health coverage compared to people living in rural areas. Alker said the Medicaid expansion has helped bridge that divide. “It‘s been particularly important for rural areas and small towns, because those areas tend to have more poverty and higher rates of uninsurance and it just is hard to find a job in a rural area that offers good health care,” she said. “Medicaid has come into those areas, and really helped those communities out.”
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