Obamacare Reducing Ranks Of Unininsured Already, Probably By Murdering Them

In a result that no one could possibly have predicted, it appears that with three weeks left during the open-enrollment period, Obamacare has already resulted in a reduction in the percentage of Americans who lack health insurance. 

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, released Monday, found that 15.9 percent of U.S. adults are uninsured thus far in 2014, down from 17.1 percent for the last three months -- or calendar quarter -- of 2013.

That translates roughly to 3 million to 4 million people getting coverage.

Gallup said the share of Americans who lack coverage is on track to drop to the lowest quarterly level it measured since 2008, before Obama took office.

We're pretty sure that this is a terrible thing somehow, and it's just a matter of time before the usual crowd explains why. Maybe the death panels are killing these people off!

The biggest change in uninsured rates came for households making less than $36,000, with a reduction of 2.6 percentage points from the last quarter of 2013. While a good portion of that group was covered by expansion of Medicaid, a lot of them would be buying -- forced to buy, of course -- private insurance, often with a subsidized premium. In other words, takers, the lot of them, and now they're going to get used to having decent coverage, which may make it harder to do the honorable thing and, as Ted Cruz puts it, repeal "every single word" of the ACA. But that is because they just don't know what's good for them, and they probably resent having insurance anyway.

The survey also showed that the decline in uninsured rates was lowest for Latinos, at .8 percent, possibly in part because the ACA's Spanish-language website is still having significant problems. So with all the successful outreach the GOP is doing toward Latinos, there's another constituency to get behind ACA repeal, maybe.

While the administration is citing higher numbers of new insurance signups than those suggested by the Gallup poll, the larger administration number may be explained by the fact that it includes people switching from one insurance plan to a new plan on the exchange, which wouldn't be picked up as a change from being uninsured in the Gallup poll. Or maybe it's just Obama lying, which is another statistically possible outcome.

In any case, it's now more important than ever that Obamacare, which can never work, be stopped in its tracks before more people sign up and start thinking that it does work, because it won't and can't.

[ TPM ]

 Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. He is delighted to be part of a statistical sample that validates his choices.