Two-million more Americans are without health insurance thus far in 2017. (Photo: Pixabay; Edited: JR / TO)
Two million more Americans are without health insurance thus far in 2017, amid problems with the Affordable Care Act and Republicans’ unpopular efforts to repeal the law.
The uninsured rate was up on a quarterly basis for the second time in-a-row this year, according to the results of a survey released Monday by Gallup. The measure of those lacking coverage was at 11.7 percent in the second quarter, up from 11.3 percent in the first quarter, and 10.9 percent at the end of 2016.
Gallup described the 0.8-percent increase as “statistically significant given the very large sample sizes involved.”
About 2,400 people are at serious risk as a result of the lost coverage. According to a Harvard-Center for American Progress study, one adult will die for every 830 adults lacking insurance.
The increase in the uninsurance rate comes after dozens of coverage providers pulled out of state-run ACA healthcare exchanges. In October 2016, just before Donald Trump’s election, the Department of Health and Human Services said that 68 insurers would be dropping individual plans offered on state exchanges in 2017.
The same report also predicted the average cost of plans purchased on state exchanges would be up this year by 22 percent.
Obama administration officials had argued that the increase in premiums would be offset by an increase in subsidies. But since Trump’s victory last November, there has been uncertainty over the future of the ACA, and benefits and tax penalties administered through the law.
Immediately after his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order allowing agencies to ignore ACA provisions that “impose a fiscal burden” on Americans, as Gallup noted.
Despite Republicans’ victory in November, problems with Obamacare, and Republicans’ repeated vows to repeal the law, the viable alternative from the GOP has, thus far, proven wildly unpopular.
Senate Republicans’…