Worcester’s Uninsured Rate Among Best in US—Gallup

Monday, April 22, 2013

Tracey C. O'Neill GoLocalWorcester News Contributor

Worcester ranked number four in the top ten U.S. metro areas with the lowest percentage of uninsured residents according to the Gallup Healthways Well-being Index.

Massachusetts ranked top of the chart

The ranking, part of a survey of 190 metropolitan areas, had Worcester joining three other Commonwealth metropolitan areas in the top ten in the country.

Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA & NH ranked number two at 4.3%
Springfield, MA ranked number three at 4.8%
Worcester, MA ranked number four at 5.6%
Barnstable Town, MA ranked number eight at 7.1%

The Burlington-South Burlington, Vt., and Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H. metro areas had the lowest uninsured rates, at 4.1% and 4.3%, respectively.

Massachusetts continued to have the lowest uninsured rate in the U.S., at 4.5% according to Gallup for the period January to December 2012. Massachusetts also took the top spot in 2011 as the state with the lowest percentage of uninsured, at 4.9%.

Massachusetts ranked first and Texas last in each of the five years Gallup measured health insurance coverage at the state level. Massachusetts' low rates were probably due to the health insurance reforms passed in that state in 2006 under then Governor Mitt Romney according to Gallup’s 2011 polling information.

New England States Rankings

Three New England states ranked in the top five states with the lowest uninsured residents, with the remaining three finishing in the top twenty. Rhode Island had the highest percentage of uninsured residents at 15.2%.

Massachusetts at 4.9% had the lowest overall percentage
Vermont at 9.2% ranked second
Connecticut at 9.9% ranked fourth
New Hampshire at 13.6% ranked twelfth
Maine at 14.8% ranked eighteenth
Rhode Island at 15.2% ranked twentieth

At the bottom of the list

Nearly half of adult residents living in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, metro area continued to be uninsured -- about three times the national average of 16.9%. This made it the U.S. metro area with the highest percentage of adults lacking health insurance for the second year in a row, with El Paso ,TX directly following at 31.7%.

The nationwide adult uninsured rate of 16.9% in 2012 was similar to the 17.1% in 2011, but remained up from 2008 (14.8%) and 2009 (16.2%). The metro areas with the highest and lowest uninsured rates had changed little over time.

Rates remained higher in 2012

The uninsured rates in 24 states remained statistically higher in 2012 than they were in 2008 and four states have seen at least marginal increases in their uninsured rates every year since 2008: Rhode Island, New Jersey, California, and New York. No state has recorded consistent year-over-year declines in the uninsured rate during the past five years.

An average of 16.9% of all adults reported lacking health insurance last year, similar to the 17.1% in 2011, but still much higher than the 14.8% in 2008. In most states, the uninsured rate was unchanged in 2012 compared with 2011. The percentage of uninsured adults increased statistically significantly in eight states last year: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Louisiana, Texas, California, and Arizona.

Hispanic and low-income populations have more uninsured

For all of 2012, Hispanics remained the group most likely to be uninsured among major subgroups, at 40.1%. Low-income Americans, making less than $36,000 per year, were the second-most likely to lack coverage, at 30.7%. Behind them were young adults, aged 18-25, at 23.5% despite the downward trend for that group over the past couple years.

Among adults, nationally, women ranked number one as the most likely to be uninsured at 15.2%, unchanged from last year. Asian adults were next, also at 15.2%, followed by non-Hispanic whites at 12.3%.
Seniors and high-income adults continued to be the least likely to be uninsured, as has been the case since 2008.

Affordable Care Act

Large discrepancies in health insurance coverage across U.S. metro areas continued in 2012. However, this could change according to Gallup, as the centerpieces of the 2010 Affordable Care Act begin to go into effect -- health insurance exchanges and the individual mandate.

Starting Oct. 1, 2013, individuals and small businesses will be able to purchase qualified health benefit plans in a new competitive insurance marketplace. And, as of Jan. 1, 2014, all Americans will be required to carry health insurance.

The 2012 metro area data were collected as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Gallup categorized U.S. metro areas according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget's definition for Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and reports on all MSAs for which there are a minimum of 300 interviews available. Each MSA sample is weighted to ensure it is demographically representative of the population of that local area.