Uninsured in Texas and Florida
A new Census Bureau report documents the alarming percentages of people in Texas and Florida without health insurance. Leaders of both states should hang their heads in shame because they have been among the most resistant in the nation to providing coverage for the uninsured under the Affordable Care Act, the law that Republicans deride as “Obamacare.”
The law seeks to cover millions of currently uninsured people by expanding the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor and by setting up new health care exchanges on which people can buy comprehensive private insurance policies, with subsidies to help middle-income people pay their premiums.
Many states, mostly run by Republican governors or legislatures, have refused to expand their Medicaid programs despite generous federal matching funds or have refused to set up their own health exchanges; they have left that task to the federal government…