Want to know how many uninsured people below the new and old poverty lines live in Birmingham, Ala.? How about Cleveland? Or its adjacent western suburb, Lakewood? Care to check out how many people might be eligible for expanded Medicaid coverage in Lubbock, Texas, if only the state would expand Medicaid?
Now, you can find out, thanks to research by the Urban Institute.
The institute analyzed data from the 2009, 2010, and 2011 American Community Survey by the Census Bureau, and came up with uninsured estimates for 781 metro areas, including suburban swaths of major metropolitan areas.
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Big picture, here's what they found.
"Approximately 4.4 million poor uninsured adults will become newly eligible for Medicaid in the 25 states and the District of Columbia that have opted to expand. About 5.8 million will not be eligible because they live in one of the 25 non-expanding states," according to the report.
"Nationwide, an estimated 10.3 million poor uninsured adults would have new options for insurance coverage if all states were to expand Medicaid."
"Poor uninsured adults who would be newly eligible for Medicaid under [PPACA] expansion constitute 24.3 percent of all uninsured adults nationwide, and 21.2 and 27.2 percent, respectively, in the states that are and are not expanding Medicaid."
To dig deeper into the vast spreadsheet of the numbers of residents of cities, suburbs and counties in every state in the union who are or could be eligible for expanded Medicaid services, check out the institute's site.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
