More than half of the state residents who signed up for new insurance under the Affordable Care Act didn't have insurance beforehand. That's according to new data released Wednesday by Access Health CT -- the state's health insurance marketplace.
It says that of the nearly 257,000 people who signed up for Obamacare insurance, 53 percent were uninsured when they enrolled. And Kevin Counihan, who runs the agency, said that means the state has cut in half the number of people without insurance.
"We have made significant, significant strides to meet our mission and our goal and we just couldn't be happier about it," he said. "So this is a big, big day for us."
The new data is the result of polling. Access Health CT says it reached out to over 2,500 people who enrolled in Obamacare this year and asked them whether they had insurance before. Half of them apparently didn't, and they do now. According to Counihan, more than 12 percent of the state's population was without insurance a few years ago. Before the implementation of Obamacare, that number was around 8 percent. Now, he said four percent of the state's population is uninsured.
That's good news for people like Gov. Dannel Malloy who've supported the law and faced claims that the health care law wasn't really bringing more insurance to more people.
"I am extremely proud that we have gone from 12.7 percent of our population being uninsured down to four or less," Malloy told reporters. "And I'm more than happy to run on that issue. I didn't come here for a political statement. But I'm more than happy to have people understand that we've done a better job at this than any other state in the nation."
Open enrollment for insurance in 2015 is just a few months away.
