More than half of the uninsured adults who fall into a coverage gap under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act due to states not expanding Medicaid are racial or ethnic minorities, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report.
In states that don't expand Medicaid, uninsured adults whose incomes fall below the poverty level (the eligibility threshold for subsidies to buy coverage through the exchanges) but above the upper limit for Medicaid coverage still won't have an affordable coverage option in 2014. Nearly 2.6 million people out of the total 4.8 million adults who fall into the gap are people of color, according to the report.
Here are some more key findings from the report:
1. People of color are significantly more likely to be uninsured. Thirty-three percent of Hispanics and 25 percent of black Americans lack health insurance coverage, compared with just 15 percent of white people.
2. Nationwide Medicaid expansion could notably increase coverage rates among people of color. Nearly six in 10 uninsured, nonelderly black adults and roughly five in 10 uninsured Hispanics have incomes below or at the Medicaid expansion limit (138 percent of the federal poverty level).
3. Of the uninsured people who will fall into the coverage gap in the 25 states not expanding Medicaid in 2014, 21 percent are Hispanic, and 25 percent are black. Other people of color account for 5 percent of those in the coverage gap.
4. Large shares of adults who fall into the coverage gap live in a small number of states. For instance, more than four in 10 of the 1.3 million uninsured black adults in the coverage gap live in
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