By Ken Alltucker | The Arizona Republic
Arizona was among states with the largest drops in the uninsured rate last year, as 215,000 Arizonans gained health coverage during the first year of the federal health-care law’s health-insurance expansion, according to a federal report released Wednesday.
The Census Bureau reported that Arizona’s uninsured rate dropped to 13.6 percent in 2014, down from 17.1 percent in 2013. It’s the first census report on the uninsured rate that includes one full year of the Affordable Care Act’s two main features to extend health coverage to the uninsured. One key feature is a federal marketplace that sells subsidized health plans to moderate- to middle-income earners. The other is the Medicaid expansion for low-income residents.
