Wyoming: Hating the Obama, loving the Care

Someone just sent me this article from WyoFile which had a rather tiring & familiar headline:

Wyomingites may be skeptical of Obamacare, but many use it for health insurance

(sigh)

Wyoming leaders have repeatedly rejected Medicaid expansion, but a new study shows many residents here rely on another component of the Affordable Care Act: the health insurance marketplace.

Among 10 states with the highest share of farmers, Wyoming uses the federal health insurance marketplace the most, according to a new analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That marketplace is a virtual space for comparing plans and finding insurance that’s often more affordable than elsewhere thanks to federal subsidies. 

Disclosure: The RWJF has banner ads on this site.

More than 42,000 Wyomingites made marketplace plan selections during the 2024 open enrollment period, comprising more than 7% of the state population.

I've commented before on Florida's stunningly high rate of ACA enrollment (14.3% of the total population), but I hadn't really thought of it in terms of farm country. Nationally, Wyoming ranks 7th in terms of percent of population enrolled, behind Florida, Utah, Georgia, Texas and the Carolinas.

Utah is noteworthy because they're the only one of the top seven to have expanded Medicaid (North Carolina just did but that mostly won't be reflected in ACA exchange enrollment until the 2025 Open Enrollment Period).

The analysis also showed that Wyoming benefited the most from advanced premium tax credits, bringing down the $937 average monthly market premium in the state to $118.

“Healthcare is actually more expensive in a lot of rural states than in urban states because there’s a shortage of providers,” said Katherine Hempstead, report author and senior policy advisor for the foundation, which focuses on public health and health care issues. “It’s not very competitive, there’s long distances, and Wyoming is an especially expensive state for healthcare.”