Number of Mainers without health insurance rose 9% in 2013

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The U.S. Census Bureau reports there were 12,000 more Mainers without health insurance between 2013 and 2012.

Maine was one of just two states to experience an increase in the number people without health insurance in 2013, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The number of uninsured Mainers grew by 12,000 people between 2012 and 2013, according to the survey. Nationally, the number of uninsured dropped by 0.2 percent, while Maine's rose from 10.2 percent to 11.2 percent. The total number of uninsured in Maine is now 147,000, according to the data released Tuesday.

New Jersey was the only other state to experience an increase in its uninsured rate.

The survey released Tuesday also contains a margin of error. For Maine, the error rate could mean the difference of up to 10,000 uninsured people from the new results.

Nationally, the number of uninsured was 42 million people or 14.5 percent. Maine's uninsured rate puts the state in the top third of the country, but second highest in New England. Rhode Island had the highest rate at 11.6 percent. Massachusetts, which in 2006 implemented a health care law that became the model of the Affordable Care Act, has the lowest rate of 3.7 percent. Vermont, which is moving toward universal health care, posted a rate of 7.7 percent.

The findings were included in the bureau's annual American Community Survey.

The expansion of Medicaid, the publicly funded health coverage program for low income Americans, is another major component of the health care law.

Maine is one of 21 states that have not participated in Medicaid expansion. New Jersey, which also experience a spike in uninsured rates, is one of 28 states and the District of Columbia that has joined Medicaid expansion.

Maine has also decreased narrowed the eligibility criteria for its existing Medicaid program. In 2012, the Maine Legislature and Republican Gov. Paul LePage redefined eligibility, which removed people from the Medicaid program - known here as MaineCare. It was not immediately clear if there is a correlation between the data on the uninsured released Tuesday and those Mainers who previously received Medicaid coverage or would have had coverage if Maine had joined the expansion states.

Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., said during a conference call that the data showed that the states that expanded Medicaid 'experienced much larger declines in their uninsured populations this year than states that rejected the expansion.'

'Since today's Census and (Center for Disease Control) data also show that people in the more than 20 states that rejected the expansion were likelier to be uninsured in 2013 than people in states that took the expansion, this means the gap in health insurance coverage between the two groups of states is widening,' Greenstein said.

The debate to expand Medicaid dominated the 126th Legislature with LePage vetoing an array of proposals to accept federal funding from the health care law.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that there had been a change in methodology used by in the U.S. Census Bureau and therefore made comparisons between the uninsured rate in 2013 and 2012 impractical. There were two surveys released Tuesday, one contained the methodology change, but the American Community Survey did not.

This story will be updated.

Steve Mistler can be contacted at 791-6345 or at: smistler@pressherald.com Twitter: @stevemistler