Georgia has fifth-highest share of residents with no health insurance
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Georgia has the fifth-highest percentage of people under 65 without health insurance, according to new U.S. Census bureau data, with 13.6% of residents, or 1.2 million people, uninsured as of 2022.
Why it matters: That's a big improvement over 2006, when 19.7% of Georgians were uninsured — but still more than the national uninsured rate of 9.5%.
- Georgia is 1 of 10 states that have yet to expand Medicaid eligibility to more residents under the Affordable Care Act.
Zoom in: The rate of people without health insurance is highest in some of Georgia's smaller, rural counties: Whitfield (21.4%), Atkinson (20.7%), Webster (20.4%), Candler (20.2%) and Gordon (19.9%) counties have the highest percent of uninsured residents.
- Oconee (7.4%), Chattahoochee (8%), Forsyth (8.3%), Harris (9%) and Fayette (9.8%) counties have the lowest.
Zoom out: Texas (18.8%) Oklahoma (14.3%), Wyoming (14.1%) and Florida (13.9%) have the highest share of uninsured residents among U.S. states and Washington, D.C.
- Massachusetts (2.9%), Washington, D.C. (3.1%) and Hawai'i (4.3%) have the lowest.
State of play: More recent preliminary data shows an uptick in the overall uninsured rate as states cut Medicaid rolls and unemployment rises, Axios' Maya Goldman reports.
- The state hoped to fill some coverage gaps when it launched Georgia Pathways to Coverage in 2023 for poor residents who work at least 80 hours a month.
- But a recent AJC report found that only about 4,500 people enrolled in the program's first year, much lower than the 90,000 Gov. Brian Kemp projected.
Stunning stat: Nearly 300,000 more residents could receive health insurance if Georgia fully expanded Medicaid under the ACA, according to an Urban Institute report.
- However, state lawmakers killed Medicaid expansion efforts during the 2024 legislative session.
- DCH told Axios that more than 1.3 million residents selected private health insurance plans for this year through Georgia Access, a state-based health insurance marketplace that includes Affordable Care Act plans. The spokesperson said more than 54% of the residents earn up to $22,590 annually.
The big picture: The uninsured rate fell in 627 U.S. counties and increased in only 23 between 2021 and 2022 — meaning Americans are trending toward being covered rather than not.
- Coverage expansions under the Affordable Care Act and social safety net policies enacted during the height of the pandemic are helping reduce the uninsured rate, per KFF.