The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that no state reported a statistically significant increase in the number of people without health insurance, and, overall, Medicaid expansion and state exchanges were linked to greater reductions.
The uninsured rate in the 21 states that have chosen to expand Medicaid and set up their own state exchanges or partnerships in the health insurance marketplace declined 4.8 points compared with a 2.7-point drop across the 29 states that have implemented only one or neither of those actions.
The 11 states with the greatest reductions are Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia. Of the 11 states with the greatest reductions, Montana is the only one that has not expanded Medicaid and established a state-based marketplace exchange or state-federal partnership. Overall, Massachusetts had the lowest uninsured rate in the nation in 2014, at 4.6 percent, while Texas had the highest uninsured rate at 24.4 percent.
Gallup and Healthways’ results are based on telephone interviews conducted Jan. 2, 2013 to Dec. 30, 2013, and Jan. 2, 2014 to Dec. 30, 2014, as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, with a random sample of 178,072 adults in 2013 and 176,702 adults in 2014, age 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.
