Texas residents are the least likely to have health-insurance coverage, while those in Massachusetts are by far the best-covered, according to a Gallup poll published on Tuesday.
There are few surprises in the latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which finds on average 16.8 percent of U.S. adults went without any kind of health insurance in the first half of 2011, virtually the same as the year before but up from 14.8 percent in 2008.
Not surprisingly, the numbers also reflect the strongly differing approaches to health care taken by the two governors responsible, who both happen to be seeking the Republican nomination for president—former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and current Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Gallup’s telephone interviews of more than 177,000 U.S. adults from January through June show 27.2 percent of Texans lack private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid or Veterans Affairs coverage, compared to 5.3 percent in Massachusetts, which mandated universal coverage under Romney in 2006 and which has by far the lowest percentage of uninsured residents.
Vermont is the next, with 9.2 percent. Minnesota is a close third, with 9.4 percent of residents lacking coverage. “Uninsured rates are lower in the Northeast, with 7 of 10 states with the fewest uninsured residents located there, as in past years,” Gallup says.
On the other end of the scale, after Texas, 24.5 percent of Mississippi residents lack health insurance, including Medicare or Medicaid. Alaska comes third, at 23.5 percent without coverage.
“Uninsured rates across states in 2011 appear to be relatively stable so far compared with 2010, but remain higher than in 2008,” Gallup said in a statement.
“This could be seen as good news at a time when states are grappling with deep budget cuts and the implementation of new regulations and programs required under the Affordable Care Act. However, more than 10 percent of adults lack health care coverage in almost all states, with more than 15 percent going uninsured in 29 states. The fate of uninsured rates in America remains precarious as numerous states are challenging the legality of the new health care law in court.”
The three main conservative legal challenges to the 2010 health-reform law are almost certain to end up in the Supreme Court, with mixed rulings from appeals courts on whether various parts of the law are constitutional.
Both Perry and Romney are defensive about their states’ records. Perry has said his stand-on-your-own-two-feet approach has cut costs and helped create jobs in Texas, and indeed the state has a large number of small businesses that tend to be the kind of workplaces that do not offer insurance to employees. Nationally, about 59 percent of Americans get health insurance through employment, but in Texas, the rate is about 50 percent.
Perry has also blamed the federal government for some of the state’s health-insurance woes. Texas submitted a proposal to the Health and Human Services Department in 2008 to get more people onto Medicaid by restructuring how it is funded, creating a state pool. Perry accused HHS of sitting on the proposal, something HHS disputes.
PolitiFact Texas also disputes this and rates Perry’s assertion as false.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, which does independent research on health care, found that Texas spends $4,601 per capita on health care, compared to the $5,823 national average. Its infant mortality rate—an indicator of overall health care quality, is 6.3 per 1,000 births compared to a national average of 6.8 infant deaths per 1,000 births.
In contrast, Massachusetts spends $6,683 per capita but has an infant mortality rate of just 5 per 1,000 live births.
Romney has frequently said the Massachusetts plan he shepherded is good for the state but not necessarily for the nation as a whole. The Massachusetts plan requires just about everyone to get health insurance, provides cheap or free public coverage, and was a clear guide for the 2010 national health care law.
Liberal groups like the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, which advocates for universal health care, has ranked Massachusetts first in the country for covering adults and children in 2009, and put Texas last. The group rated Texas 46th in terms of overall quality of care and access, and ranked Massachusetts seventh.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the date on which the Gallup poll was published. It was published on Tuesday.
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