More than one-third of Texas’ six million uninsured residents are “Young Invincibles” — adults below age 35 who forgo health insurance believing that they are too healthy to justify the cost of coverage. Their participation in the Marketplace is critical to reduce the uninsured rate among all Texans. While these young adults have substantial need for health coverage, on the eve of the launch of the Marketplace, Texas’ “Young Invincibles” had a poor understanding of the Affordable Care Act’s health coverage opportunities and held a low opinion of the new law, according to a report by Rice University's Baker Institute and the Episcopal Health Foundation.
The report was authored by Elena Marks, president and CEO of the Episcopal Health Foundation and a health policy scholar at the Baker Institute; Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics, a professor of economics at Rice and a professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine; and Patricia Gail Bray, director of the Episcopal Health Foundation's research program and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Texas School of Public Health's Fleming Center for Healthcare Management. The report is part of the Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS)-Texas.
