The number of Minnesotans without health insurance fell by 40.6 percent between September 30, 2013 and May 1, 2014, according to a new report prepared by State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

This first-of-its-kind report of the Affordable Care Act’s state-level impact found the number of uninsured Minnesotans fell by nearly 180,500 (from 445,000 to 264,500). As a result, the share of Minnesota’s population without health insurance fell from 8.2 percent to just 4.9 percent by the end of the ACA’s open enrollment period.

“Our findings are consistent with reports of early national impacts of the ACA  showing a decline in the number of uninsured and also with the experience of Massachusetts, which implemented similar reforms in 2007,” said Ms. Julie Sonier, deputy director of SHADAC, lead author on the report. “We know that the ACA’s impacts will vary by state, and our purpose in doing this analysis was to examine the impacts on Minnesota, in advance of the first state-level results from surveys, which are not expected until the end of this year at the earliest.”

Read more on the Minnesota website.