Hispanic Uninsured Rate Plummets, Millions Gain Coverage

Last week, we released a study showing how millions of Hispanics gained jobs under Presidents Clinton and Obama, and millions lost their jobs under the last two Presidents Bush. The contrast was stark, and reiterated how much the lives of Hispanics have improved under the last two Democratic Presidents.

But as we’ve seen significant improvements in the economic wellbeing of Hispanics in recent years, the story is even more dramatic when you factor in the impact of Affordable Care Act. According to Gallup, in the first eighteen months of the ACA, the Hispanic uninsured rate has dropped by a quarter, from 38% to 29%. In raw numbers, this means that close to 4 million Hispanics have gained health insurance in the very early days of the ACA. By comparison, this is more people than estimates believe will take advantage of the new DAPA/DACA programs – so it is a very large number indeed.

Taken together, it suggests the last few years have been very good ones for Hispanics in the United States - millions of Hispanics have landed a new job while millions have also gained health insurance.

Of course, Hispanics, and all Americans were told by Republicans that this would not happen – that the ACA itself would fail to provide the coverage promised by the Administration, and it would slow the economy. In fact the exact opposite has happened, something we noted in another study we produced a few months ago called, “The GOP Got It Spectacularly Wrong on the ACA.”

The implications of all this on 2016 could be significant. The message from the likely GOP ticket next year will one of rolling back these gains by adopting an economic approach that led to significant unemployment of Hispanics in each of the last two GOP Administrations, and the direct stripping of at least 4 million Hispanics of health insurance they have recently acquired (and perhaps more by the fall of 2016). As we wrote recently, this is another reason why the “hole is very deep” for the GOP with this critical part of the electorate.

For more, see some illustrative graphs below: