Dive Brief:
- The percentage of uninsured Americans dipped by 1.3% from 2014 to 2015 to a total of 9.1% of the population under age 65, according to a new report by U.S. Census officials. That's a dip from 33 million people to 29 million people.
- The findings showed that to be the second consecutive year that uninsurance decreased in all age groups under 65.
- The report follows on the heels of the CDC's National Health Interview Survey last week that also indicated a sustained reduction to the uninsured rate since the implementation of many provisions of the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2014.
Dive Insight:
For comparison, the U.S. uninsured rate was just under 16% in 2010, before the ACA, according to the census data, and the law is credited by the CDC data with getting about 21.3 million more people covered since that time. The law's impact to the uninsurance rate presents a conundrum for opponents who claim to want to abolish it, but could then face potential voter backlash.
Among the highlights of the census report were the coverage increase came thanks to increases in both private and government coverage, with private coverage up 1.2% to 67.2% in 2015, and government coverage up 0.6% to 37.1%.
It added that employer-based insurance was the most common, covering 55.7% of the population. Next were Medicaid covering 19.6%, Medicare covering 16.3%, direct-purchase insurance (including ACA plans) covering 16.3% and military healthcare covering 4.7%. The biggest change from 2014 to 2015 was the 1.7% increase in direct-purchase health insurance, which brought it to cover the 16.3% in 2015 compared to 14.6% in 2014.
The data showed a large disparity in uninsurance rates by state during 2015, with the lowest state rate being 2.8% in Massachusetts and the highest being 17.1% in Texas.
Another large highlight from the report is the median household income in the U.S. in 2015 was $56,516, an increase of 5.2% compared to 2014 ($53,718). However, as Modern Healthcare's Bob Herman notes, medical out-of-pocket expenses resulted in 11.2 million people going into poverty last year.