Health Insurance Coverage In Georgia
February 9th, 2011 Posted in GA Health Insurance, GA Health Insurance Exchange, Health Insurance, PPACAAn interesting question is where will Georgians get health insurance coverage in 2014? Assuming ObamaCare survives intact we will have (i) an individual mandate to purchase health insurance, (ii) the health insurance exchanges, (iii) guarantee issue (insurance companies cannot deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions), and (iv) premium subsidies for people with incomes of less than 400% of the Federal Poverty Level.
Dr. Bill Custer, Director of the Center for Health Services Research at Georgia State University, provided me with some figures about the distribution of where the non-elderly (under age 65) in Georgia found health insurance coverage in 2009:
| Individuals | Percent | |
| Total | 8,738,136 | 100% |
| Private Coverage: | ||
| Employer Sponsored Plans: | ||
| – Employees | 2,375,571 | 27% |
| – Dependents | 2,591,005 | 30% |
| Total Employer Sponsored Plans | 4,966,576 | 57% |
| Private Individual Coverage | 584,201 | 7% |
| Total Private Coverage | 5,455,358 | 62% |
| Public Coverage: | ||
| Medicare (Under Age 65) | 251,708 | 3% |
| Medicaid | 1,250,174 | 14% |
| SCHIP (PeachCare) | 465,172 | 5% |
| Total Public Coverage | 1,739,695 | 20% |
| Uninsured | 1,967,520 | 22% |
The totals are greater than 100% because people were during the course of the year covered by more than one policy.
How many employers will drop their health insurance plans, thus forcing their employees onto the exchange or into the private individual health insurance market? Will we see a reduction of the number of uninsured in Georgia? How many people will opt to be uninsured (and therefore have to pay a fine to the Feds)?
Stay tuned and I will give you my best estimates in a later blog post.
