A new Commonwealth Fund study suggests that some of the differences in insurance coverage rates and affordability of care among the nation’s four largest states may be attributable to health insurance policies in these states before and after the Affordable Care Act took effect.
According to the analysis, which is based on findings from the Fund’s 2014 Biennial Health Insurance Survey of working-age adults, four of 10 adults in Florida and Texas—states that did not expand Medicaid—reported they had trouble paying their medical bills or were paying off medical debt over time in 2014, compared with one of four adults in California and three of 10 in New York, where Medicaid eligibility was expanded. Higher proportions of people in Florida and Texas also had trouble getting needed health care because of the cost.