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“We will continue to work tirelessly to remove barriers to coverage and double down on our efforts to get more Black Americans insured,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in releasing the report.
Researchers also found that states that have not expanded Medicaid have the highest percentage of uninsured people who are Black. “If the remaining 12 non-expansion states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming) were to expand Medicaid, an estimated 957,000 Black Americans without insurance coverage would become eligible for Medicaid coverage,” an HHS press release says. More than one-third — 37 percent — of uninsured Black Americans live in three states: Florida, Georgia and Texas.
In addition, the report found that non-Latino American Indians and Alaska Natives had the highest uninsured rate in 2019 (22 percent), followed by Latinos of all races (20 percent). Asian American and Pacific Islanders and white Americans had uninsured rates in the 7 to 8 percent range in 2019.
ASPE used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the National Health Interview Survey for its report. While there were surveys in 2020, the pandemic made data collection difficult, the report says, so researchers mainly relied on the 2019 surveys for their analysis.
Dena Bunis covers Medicare, health care, health policy and Congress. She also writes the Medicare Made Easy column for the AARP Bulletin. An award-winning journalist, Bunis spent decades working for metropolitan daily newspapers, including as Washington bureau chief for the Orange County Register and as a health policy and workplace writer for Newsday.
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