Health insurance is considered essential to access high-quality health care and offer protection from excessive medical bills. Throughout the year, the Kansas Health Institute (KHI) provides detailed information about insurance coverage in Kansas. This Infographic provides the first glimpse at recently released detailed data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Over the coming months, follow us on Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn, and check out www.khi.org frequently to get more information as it becomes available.
This Infographic provides a high-level overview of insurance coverage in Kansas in 2018.
Highlights include:
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- Nearly 1.8 million Kansans were covered by private insurance, including:
- 1.5 million by employment-based coverage, and
- 178,050 by directly purchased insurance, including 87,975 on the Kansas marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
- Another 829,153 were covered by public insurance, including:
- 416,628 were covered by Medicare,
- 328,133 by Medicaid/CHIP, and
- 75,395 by both Medicare and Medicaid.
- And 249,117 Kansans were uninsured, including:
- 206,458 adults, and
- 39,965 children.
- Nearly 1.8 million Kansans were covered by private insurance, including:
Medicaid expansion is a current topic of much discussion in Kansas. We are one of 14 states that has not expanded Medicaid coverage to all adults up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) as allowed by the ACA. Medicaid expansion would have covered individual adults with annual income up to $16,753 in 2018, and also would have covered the parent(s) in a four-person family up to an annual family income of $34,638.
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- If the state had expanded its program, 74,774 low-income, uninsured Kansas adults would have become newly eligible for Medicaid coverage.
- Another 36,356 low-income uninsured Kansans were already eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), but were not enrolled.
- More than half (129,955 or 52.2 percent) of uninsured Kansans in 2018 might have qualified for subsidies to purchase health insurance on the Kansas marketplace.
NOTE on data:
This infographic uses the latest-available data, which come from the 2018 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Early 2018 Effectuated Enrollment Snapshot Fact Sheet from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Kansas population presented is the non-institutionalized population in Kansas. Estimates of the number of Kansans eligible for Medicaid or qualifying for marketplace plans and subsidies are based on the Census definition of household units, which consist of all individuals currently residing in the sampled household, regardless of how members of the household are related. Actual experience may differ, as eligibility determinations for Medicaid and the health insurance marketplace include other considerations.
This Infographic is part of our Annual Insurance Update series.