NEW YORK (AP) — A year into New York’s operation of a medical insurance exchange, more than half of the people with new coverage qualified for Medicaid — the federal program for the poor — and many didn’t know they were eligible until the push under the Affordable Care Act. Overall, 370,604 people were enrolled with commercial and nonprofit insurers, 525,283 in Medicaid; and 64,875 in the state’s Child Health Plus coverage for families with moderate incomes. Medicaid eligibility was expanded under the Affordable Care Act but the number of newly eligible recipients was relatively small in New York, which already had generous eligibility requirements compared with most states. Health care providers hope the health of high-poverty areas like the Bronx will improve under the Affordable Care Act, but they note that hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal residency will remain ineligible for health insurance. A total of 877 people signed up for health insurance through New York’s health plan marketplace in remote Schuyler County at the lower edge of the Finger Lakes, where 14.1 percent of residents in the small, rural county were uninsured in 2013. Another of the five free clinics operated by the Health Ministry of the Southern Tier in neighboring Steuben County closed on Sept. 30, after operators said the Affordable Care Act reduced the number of uninsured seeking services. “The population tends to heavily use the local volunteer ambulance services as a transportation option to medical services in the Emergency Department,” a 2013 community health assessment concluded.
Source: www.sfchronicle.com
