Summary of the Current Status of Health Insurance Enrollment in Connecticut

The state of Connecticut is considering a number of policy options to improve health insurance affordability, access, and equity. To create policies designed to increase insurance coverage and access to care in underserved communities and reduce racial and ethnic disparities, state policymakers need an accurate picture of the current distributions of insurance enrollment across these dimensions. The authors combine data from the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample, which includes demographic characteristics, as well as insurance status, with various data sources from the state to provide a fuller picture of insurance enrollment among those under the age of 65 in Connecticut. They also use existing high-level estimates of 2020 insurance enrollment to provide estimates of how enrollment in the state was affected during the early months of the pandemic. The authors find that insurance enrollment in Connecticut in 2019 was generally high but that there were substantial differences in insurance coverage by race and ethnicity. Asian individuals had the highest rates of employer-sponsored insurance coverage, and Black individuals had the highest rates of Medicaid coverage. Hispanic individuals had a higher rate of Medicaid coverage than non-Hispanic individuals. High-level estimates of changes in insurance coverage during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that uninsurance decreased slightly, Medicaid coverage increased, and private insurance coverage fell. This study provides the state of Connecticut with estimates of enrollment in detailed health insurance categories by age, gender, race, and ethnicity and highlights the need for better, more-detailed health insurance enrollment data.