Public News Service

By: Roz Brown

Since Minnesota expanded its Medicaid program in 2013, the number of people uninsured in the state’s rural areas has been cut nearly in half. A new report from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families examines how states are doing, whether or not they opted to expand Medicaid, and Minnesota’s numbers are among the bright spots. Stephanie Hogenson, outreach director of the Children’s Defense Fund in Minnesota, says the state’s uninsured rate for low-income, rural residents was 24 percent in 2009. Now, it’s 13 percent.

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The report says states that have expanded Medicaid have seen their rural uninsured rates drop more than three times as much as states that didn’t opt to expand. Report co-author Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, says the benefits go beyond people’s ability to get and afford health care. She says they reach far into the economies of small towns and sparsely-populated counties, as well. “There’s so much research about this,” she states. “So, from an economic perspective, having health insurance, having this Medicaid coverage, is really important in these rural areas, which are already struggling with higher rates of unemployment and poverty.”

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