Report: ACA narrowed racial/ethnic coverage gaps, but progress stalled

The Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions have led to historic reductions in racial disparities in access to health care since 2013, but progress has stalled since 2016, according to a study released last week by the Commonwealth Fund. The researchers focused on the years 2013 to 2018, and among other findings showed the uninsured rate for black adults dropped from 24.4% percent in 2013 to 14.4% in 2018, while the rate for Hispanic adults decreased from 40.2% percent to 24.9%. This reduced the disparity with white adults by 4.1 and 9.4 percentage points, respectively. However, since 2016, black adults have seen their uninsured rate tick up by 0.7 percentage points while white adults have seen a half-point increase. Another finding showed insurance coverage disparities between white adults and the black adults and Hispanics shrank more in states that expanded Medicaid than in states that did not.