Texas has the highest population of uninsured people in the nation.
Roughly 4.5 million people in Texas didn’t have health insurance in 2016, leading the nation in both the number and percentage of residents who are uninsured, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today.
While Texas has been among states with the highest rates and number of uninsured people for the past few years, the 2016 numbers reflect a steady decrease in the past several years.
For example, in 2013, the bureau reported 5.7 people million people without insurance in Texas, meaning roughly 1.2 million people gained health insurance in Texas following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
States that expanded the population eligible for Medicaid under the ACA saw the steepest declines in the number of uninsured, according to the data. Texas has not expanded its Medicaid program.
Between 2015 and 2016, the percentage of people without health insurance decreased in 39 states. Eleven states and the District of Columbia did not have a statistically significant change, the bureau said.
Non-Hispanic whites had the lowest uninsured rate among different ethnicities at 6.3 percent. Sixteen percent of Hispanics were uninsured in 2016, and uninsured rates for African-Americans and Asian Americans were 10.5 and 7.6 percent, respectively.
Nationally, the total number of people without health insurance coverage in 2016 was 28.1 million, or 8.8 percent of the population, a drop of about one million compared to the year before.
