Hundreds of thousands of younger veterans go uninsured, new report finds

Ahead of Veterans Day, the nonprofit research organization Urban Institute has released a surprising new report that says hundreds of thousands of younger veterans are uninsured. The report offers a solution too, involving Medicaid.

Many veterans get health insurance through the Departments of Defense or Veterans Affairs, but there are restrictions on eligibility, and some veterans live a long way from a VA facility. Older veterans can enroll in Medicare.

But “a little under 5% of veterans below age 65 remain without coverage,” said Jessica Banthin at the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center.

That works out to about 400,000 people. Now, some veterans enroll in Medicaid, the health insurance for low-income Americans. All but 10 states have expanded Medicaid, making it easier to qualify.

In 2021, Banthin said that slightly more than half of those younger, uninsured veterans lived in states that did not expand Medicaid, such as Texas.

Dr. Adam Gaffney teaches at Harvard Medical School and has studied this. “In the state of Texas, we found that about 1 in 10 — about 10% of veterans — were uninsured,” he said.

Gaffney added that Medicaid would provide a “crucial lifeline” for veterans in the states that haven’t expanded it. In addition to Texas, those states are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming.