According to the most recent census data, the uninsured portion of the United States population has fallen to 9 percent, with the sharpest drop registered among those living in households with incomes of less than $48,600 a year (for a family of four)  or $23,760 for a single person.

 It would seem that lower-income Americans are among the greatest beneficiaries of the Affordable Care.Act  (A.C.A) reforms, also know as Obamacare. However, in some states this same population also remains, paradoxically, among the reforms’ greatest losers. Either they made too much to qualify for Medicaid, or didn’t qualify at all, but they also made too little for publicly subsidized insurance on the exchanges, their income not high enough to trigger the refundable tax credits and cost-sharing that could make the possibility remotely affordable to someone making just a few dollars above the federal poverty level. This subpopulation is living inside a kind of “dead zone". , reports The New York Times in a special issue about Obamacare this week.