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They say the good times don’t last forever.
Just 5% of New Yorkers lacked health insurance in 2021, but the state may struggle to maintain that low rate (it’s currently among the top 10 in the US) following the end of a pandemic-era policy that prevented anyone from being kicked off Medicaid.
A new report from New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli analyzed health insurance trends in the state, and found the percentage of uninsured New Yorkers fell each year from 11.9% in 2010—when the Affordable Care Act (which allowed states to extend Medicaid eligibility) became law—to 5.2% in 2021.
Nationally, 8.6% of people lacked health insurance in 2021, according to the analysis. (Though Department of Health and Human Services data released earlier this month found the US uninsured rate hit a record low of 7.7% during the first three months of 2023.)
DiNapoli’s office attributed New York’s low uninsured rate to the large percentage of residents enrolled in public health insurance programs (about 40% of all residents) and the record high Medicaid enrollment during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, enrollment in New York’s Medicaid program is expected to drop from about 8 million as of June 2023 to 6.9 million by April 2024 as the state redetermines eligibility for the program. New York’s uninsured rate could also take a hit if residents who lose coverage as a result of that process do not enroll in another health plan.
“Public policies over the last decade have had a significant impact in reducing the number of uninsured New Yorkers,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “As the state begins reprocessing eligibility determinations for public health insurance, continued transparency and reporting will be essential for understanding the implications for coverage rates among New Yorkers of all races and ethnicities and on the state’s budget.”
The federal government prevented states from removing individuals no longer eligible for Medicaid (or other public health insurance) from their program’s rolls from March 2020 through the end of March 2023 in exchange for higher reimbursements. As many as 15 million New York residents could lose coverage through the redetermination process, according to federal estimates.
New York’s Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri said in July that the state had processed its first renewal cohort and planned to utilize all 14 months of the redetermination period.
Racial disparities
Despite the state’s low uninsured rate, the report found coverage disparities among various groups. New Yorkers who identify as Black, Asian, or Hispanic/Latino were less likely to have health insurance, as were residents with low to moderate incomes.
For example, just 3% of white New Yorkers lacked insurance, compared to 10% of Hispanic/Latino and 6% of Black and Asian residents. Meanwhile, households with incomes between $25,000 and $49,000 saw the highest rates of uninsured individuals, the report found.