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{PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSHUA FRANZOS}
Karen Feinstein of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation
KEEP ROLLING W
HEN THE Affordable Care Act
became law and implementation was set to begin in 2013, Southwestern Pennsylvania was basically on its own. Federal assistance was virtually nonexistent, says Karen Feinstein, head of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation of Pittsburgh. Federal officials sent neither canvassers to teach people how to sign up for health insurance through the ACA nor health-care experts to solve problems with the ACA marketplace; other assistance was also not provided to the Pittsburgh area. And Feinstein says that while President Barack Obama’s administration sent “a very nice woman” to Pittsburgh, “she didn’t know McKeesport from McKees Rocks.” So Pittsburgh and the region had to do what they do best: bring together institu-
tions, nonprofits, religious organizations, businesses and public servants to work on a common goal. Feinstein says nonprofits like JHF, churches, Allegheny County’s Health Department, libraries, hospitals and
The Pittsburgh region has been great at getting people enrolled under the Affordable Care Act. But will that success continue? {BY RYAN DETO} businesses like Giant Eagle came together to create and implement a comprehensive strategy to get people covered through the ACA marketplace, which offers insurance to individuals under 65 years old.
It worked. Allegheny County and the surrounding counties have some of the lowest rates of uninsured individuals in the entire country. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, Pennsylvania as a whole is the most insured state in the U.S., despite relatively high uninsured rates in Philadelphia and some other rural counties. Even with the lack of federal assistance that the Pittsburgh region had during the ACA rollout, the region quickly lowered its non-elderly uninsured rate. According to U.S. Census figures, the Pittsburgh metro area’s 2016 non-elderly uninsured rate is 4.5 percent. In 2012, before the ACA, the rate was 9.5 percent. By comparison, Philadelphia metro area’s 2016 non-elderly uninsured rate is 6.6 percent; it was 10.8 percent in 2012. Unfortunately, the job of getting people CONTINUES ON PG. 08
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.22/11.29.2017