HealthSource RI: Rate of uninsured drops to 5 percent

HEALTHSOURCE RI said that the rate of uninsured Rhode Islanders has dropped to 5 percent.
HEALTHSOURCE RI said that the rate of uninsured Rhode Islanders has dropped to 5 percent.

PROVIDENCE – HealthSource RI said that the rate of uninsured Rhode Islanders has dropped to 5 percent.
The state’s health-benefits exchange said that the percentage of Rhode Islanders without health insurance has been reduced by more than half since 2012, according to the results of a statewide survey commissioned by HSRI.
Before the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured residents totaled approximately 113,000. Now, there are fewer than 50,000, according to HealthSource RI.
The Health Information Survey, conducted from mid-April to June, showed a drop in the uninsured rate to 5 percent in 2015, from 11 percent in 2012. The survey had a margin of error of +/- 1 percent. Approximately 5,000 households and more than 12,000 individual Rhode Islanders were surveyed.
Anya Rader Wallack, HSRI executive director, said the Affordable Care Act is working best in states like Rhode Island that have “fully implemented Medicaid expansion and embraced a state-run exchange.”
More than 37,000 are enrolled in health coverage through HealthSource RI. In partnership with the federal government, HeathSource said it has connected more than 30,000 Rhode Islanders with financial assistance to make private health insurance affordable. Another 82,000 have been enrolled in Medicaid since 2012 under expanded federal eligibility rules, HealthSource RI said.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Elizabeth Roberts said that “a coordinated approach to expanding coverage through both Medicaid and a state-based exchange has had a dramatic impact in reducing the number of uninsured in Rhode Island.”

Rhode Island’s falling uninsured rate is consistent with recent national surveys such as the Gallup poll that places the Ocean State’s uninsured rate at 2.7 percent.
Meanwhile, Wallack and Roberts said they will work together in the coming months to address needs highlighted in the survey. For example, they will work to identify and enroll as many remaining uninsured Rhode Islanders as possible, continue to expand insurance options available to employers through HSRI and address underlying drivers of unsustainable health care cost growth.

The survey found that uninsured Rhode Islanders are likely to be young (52 percent are ages 18 to 34 and another 14 percent are 35 to 44), male and earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. HealthSource RI said there are several affordable plans available.

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1 COMMENT

  1. This success is a tremendous testimony to the work of Elizabeth Roberts, Anya Rader Wallack, Christie Ferguson, ad the HSRI team in getting this Exchange up and running.

    I hope that RI appreciates what it has with the Exchange, and that it gets the full support of the business community.