8M Poor People Still Not Covered by ObamaCare

They live in states that opted out of the Medicaid expansion
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 3, 2013 9:45 AM CDT
8M Poor People Still Not Covered by ObamaCare
In this screen grab image, online visitors are asked to be patient while loggin in to the Health Care Marketplace website.   (AP Photo/The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)

The new health-care exchanges set up under ObamaCare are now a reality, but a New York Times analysis finds a problem with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act that goes beyond software glitches. About 8 million working poor people who need health insurance still can't get it, with black people and single mothers accounting for most of them. The problem is that they live in one of the 26 states that chose not to expand its Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act.

The upshot is that these 8 million are "stuck between people with slightly higher incomes who will qualify for federal subsidies on the new health exchanges that went live this week, and those who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid in its current form, which has income ceilings as low as $11 a day in some states," write Sabrina Tavernise and Robert Gebeloff. Click for the full story, in which civil rights advocates say the real issue at play is race. (More ObamaCare stories.)

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