Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Red States, Blue States and Obamacare

For our discussion of state political culture and federalism:

This is probably not too surprising but people in blue states are enrolling in the ACA more than those in red states. Blue states are more likely to run their own exchanges and/or assist people in enrolling in the national program. States like Texas have attempted to make it very difficult to do so.

So you get results like this:

 Data from Kaiser Family Foundation


A similar breakdown exists regarding the expansion of Medicaid, which is encouraged, but not required. Each state can determine for itself whether it wants to expand the number of its citizens who can obtain health care. Blue states have tended to go for it, red states have generally not: