New census data shows desperate need for health care in red states

The Census Bureau has released new information on the uninsured in America from last year. One of the findings dramatically demonstrates how critical the Medicaid expansion part of Obamacare would be to the the states that have refused the expansion.

Seven of the 11 large metro areas where the uninsured rate was higher than the 14.5 percent national average last year are located in states that refused to expand to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Two are in Florida, three are in Texas, and the others are Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina. The metro area with the highest uninsured rate was Miami, at a staggering 25 percent, compared to the national low of 4 percent in greater Boston. […]

According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, those decisions not to expand the program will leave 4.8 million people uninsured. More than 1 million of them live in Texas, 764,000 are in Florida, 409,000 are Georgia residents and 319,000 live in North Carolina.

It's been clear since spring, after the law was fully implement, that it was working better to reduce the number of uninsured in the states that fully participated. That was shown in a Gallup survey. But what this survey and others from Kaiser and other survey firms have shown is just how much impact a state like Texas or Florida refusing Medicaid expansion has.