AUGUSTA, Maine - The latest Census data indicate that a higher percentage of Maine residents have health insurance coverage than the nation as a whole.
The Census has started to report data from its population survey for 2015, and the good news is that between 2014 and 2015 the percentage of Maine residents without health insurance coverage dropped from 10.1 percent to 8.4 percent. The rate for the nation as a whole is 9.1 percent.
James Mayall, is a policy analyst with the Maine Center for Economic Policy. “We are seeing improvements. All the states are seeing improvement, but our improvement has just been sort of much slower than many of the other states, and so we are actually creeping closer to the average.”
Mayall says relative to other states, Maine is losing ground. He says the state could get even better coverage if it were to take advantage of federal law and expand Medicaid coverage to more poor Mainers.
