Thanks to Obamacare, Oregon has enrolled enough low income people to cut the uninsured population by ten percent. State officials say that expanding the medicaid program had helped many of those residents eligible for insurance plans.
Having enrolled 56,000 new residents this month, The Oregon Health Plan allows so many new members to sign up due to its “fast track” enrollment system. After being notified that they are eligible, poor residents can fill out a form or make a phone call to secure their enrollment.
In a statement, Gov. John Kitzhaber said “This is tremendous news for the thousands of Oregonians anxious to get access to quality, affordable health care. We still have a ways to go, but in reducing our uninsured rate by 10 percent in just two weeks, we’re showing what’s possible when a state is committed to fundamentally changing the health care system to provide better access, better health and lower costs.”
22 states have refused Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion program and because it’s optional, not every state will have the same effect on their uninsured residents. Unfortunately, “An estimated five million low-income people won’t be eligible for any type of federal assistance to get coverage under Obamacare because they live in states that won’t expand Medicaid.”