The Affordable Care Act and Insurance Coverage in Rural Areas May 29, 2014 Issue Brief Rural populations face disparities compared to metropolitan populations in health care. While rural individuals were not more likely to be uninsured than metropolitan counterparts pre-Affordable Care Act, they were poorer and less likely to have private insurance. With coverage changes in the ACA involving an expansion of Medicaid for poor and near-poor populations, decisions by states with large rural populations may cause rural residents to have disparate access to coverage, which may exacerbate cost and access barriers to health care.
Median Income Among Medicare Beneficiaries, Overall and by Race/Ethnicity, Age, and Gender, 2012 July 15, 2013 Slide