The Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC) recently released data on the number of people without health insurance in Washington state. (here) The number of uninsured dropped from 14.5 percent of the state population in 2012 to 7.3 percent in 2015. Uncompensated care evidently dropped from $2.35 billion in 2013 to $1.2 billion in 2014.

A total of 157,000 people now get their health insurance through the state exchange, with 120,000 of these enrollees receiving taxpayer subsidies. Nearly 680,000 people now receive health insurance through the expanded Medicaid program in Washington state.

The OIC credits the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, for these results.

The OIC neglects to mention that, thanks to Obamacare, at least 290,000 Washingtonians lost their existing health insurance and were forced to buy new policies. The OIC also fails to point out that having Medicaid health insurance is no better than not having insurance at all. (here) Because of poor provider payments from the government, access to health care is a real problem for Medicaid patients. A decrease in uncompensated care is a redistribution of money from taxpayers to hospitals. Specific hospitals, such as Harborview in Seattle, deal with a high percent of uncompensated care, but it's not clear how great a burden uncompensated or charity care is for Washington state hospitals in general.

The Kaiser Family Foundation published data on actual exchange enrollment versus the number of people eligible. (here) Nationally, only 34 percent of those eligible have signed up for health insurance on the exchanges. Washington state is even worse with only 26 percent of those eligible enrolled. And those who do enroll tend to be sicker and require more health care. (here) Those who chose not to sign up in the exchanges are either young and healthy or those who find the insurance premium costs are still too high.

The OIC can applaud the decrease in uninsured numbers, but neglects to recognize all those individuals who lost their existing health insurance, who are paying higher insurance premiums and have higher deductibles, who find an ever increasing problem with access to health care, who are paying more in taxes, and those employers who now have a huge regulatory burden, all thanks to Obamacare.