The federal government estimates that approximately 180,000 low- and moderate-income Pennsylvanians who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid have applied for health insurance through the federal health insurance exchange.
Nearly 80 percent of them are expected to qualify for some federal subsidies to help pay their premiums. 95,000 are first-time applicants.
Last year, 320,000 Pennsylvanians applied for insurance through the federal exchange. About 60 percent did not have health insurance before doing so.
As a result, it appears as if more than 300,000 of the approximately 1.4 million Pennsylvanians who were uninsured at the time the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansions took effect either now have such coverage or will soon have it. This figure includes those newly eligible for Medicaid under the state’s Healthy Pennsylvania Medicaid expansion program.
Learn more about the various means through which previously uninsured Pennsylvanians are obtaining health insurance in this Harrisburg Patriot-News article.