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#Healthcare law helps sickest Americans - depending on their state - LA Times

Every year, thousands of people like Blanca Guerra call the National Cancer Information Center, desperate to find some kind of health insurance.

Guerra rang recently from her home in Arizona, seeking help for her older brother, who had just been diagnosed with advanced stage colorectal cancer.

A few years ago, the call center would have had few solutions.

But between 2012 and 2014, when the major coverage expansion made possible by the Affordable Care Act began, the share of callers connected with coverage more than doubled from 12% to 27%, according to data provided to the Los Angeles Times.

The gains are not being evenly shared around the country, however, highlighting an issue still shadowing the federal healthcare law, even after it survived the latest legal challenge.

Put aside politics and improve healthcare, Obama says

Noam N. Levey

President Obama, fresh from a victory before the U.S. Supreme Court last week that preserved the Affordable Care Act, called for an end to the political fighting over the health law and for more effort to improve it.

President Obama, fresh from a victory before the U.S. Supreme Court last week that preserved the Affordable Care Act, called for an end to the political fighting over the health law and for more effort to improve it. ( Noam N. Levey )

Guerra got help enrolling her brother in Arizona's Medicaid program, which was expanded through the law. It was such a blessing, Guerra said in a recent interview, choking back tears.

Many callers from states such as Texas and Florida that haven't expanded their Medicaid safety nets aren't so lucky. Call center data show just 18% of callers from those two states got connected to coverage in 2014, compared with 35% in California and New York, which both expanded Medicaid.

There are so many more people we wish we could help, said Mandi Battaglia Seiler, who supervises the insurance service at the cancer call center.

The center, which sprawls through a building the size of 2 1/2 football fields in an industrial section of Austin, Texas, was set up by the American Cancer Society nearly 20 years ago.