Obamacare,  Polling

Poll Watch: Wide Disparity in Health Coverage Persists Across American Metropolitan Areas

According to the latest Gallup poll. California and Texas have the highest rates of uninsured residents.

Close to half of adults (46.1%) living in McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, had no healthcare coverage last year — nearly three times the national average — and the highest percentage across the 188 U.S. metropolitan areas that Gallup and Healthways surveyed. Texas and California account for 9 of the 10 metro areas with the highest rates of uninsured residents. The four metro areas with the lowest rates of uninsured were in Massachusetts, each with about 1 in 20 adults lacking coverage.

And, the uninsured rates are the highest in largely Hispanic metropolitan areas.

The 10 metro areas with the highest uninsured rates have a significantly higher Hispanic population than the 10 metro areas with the lowest percentage of uninsured adults. On average, 44.5% of residents surveyed in the 10 metro areas with the highest rates of uninsured are of Hispanic or Latino origin according to U.S. Census Bureau data from 2009. This compares with an average of 7.1% in the 10 metro areas with the lowest percent uninsured.

In McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, where nearly half the population is uninsured, 89.8% of residents are Hispanic. The 46.1% who were uninsured in that metro area is close to the national average of 38.9% of Hispanics who were uninsured in 2010.

Here is the chart:

So, what does this mean?

One year after the ObamaCare law passed, there continues large numbers of uninsured residents. Now, whether these are illegal immigrants of Hispanic origin is unclear. But, I suspect so, since their employers would not be providing them the opportunity to have insurance, nor would they qualify for Medicaid (while their American born children would.)

The bottom line from Gallup:

As the new healthcare law reaches the one-year mark, Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index data continue to find significant differences in coverage across the United States. There has also been no change, so far, in the percentage of uninsured adults at the national level, with 16.3% lacking healthcare in February of this year. The government, however, has only implemented certain parts of the law since it passage in March 2010 the bulk of the legislation, including the individual mandate, does not go into effect until 2014.

Although the Obama administration continues to implement the law on course, it faces ongoing legal and political challenges from the states and Republican lawmakers. And a year later, the law still lacks strong public backing. Americans remain divided in their support for the law and more people believe the new healthcare reform law will worsen rather than improve medical care in the United States.