Dive Brief:

• There were 28.4 million people without health insurance in the first six months of 2016 compared with 48.6 million in 2010, according to a CDC report published Thursday.
• The percentage of uninsured from January to June was 8.9%, down from 9.1% in 2015.
• Among patients with private health insurance, 38.8% have a high-deductible health plan, compared with 36.7% in 2015 and 24.3% in 2010.

Dive Insight:

Since the ACA passed in 2010, more than more than 20 million previously uninsured people have signed up for a health plan. However, insurance coverage rates are falling more slowly now than in the early days of Obamacare.

As the stream of uninsured patients signing up for health insurance under the ACA slows, some are wondering if the health reform law has done all it can for now. “It has got to be close to tapped out,” Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, told The Associated Press.

While the ACA deserves credit for helping to bring the uninsured rate to historic lows, not as many have signed up as previously hoped. Of the approximately 20 million who have received insurance under the law, many are covered by Medicaid expansion.

Some of the woes currently plaguing the health insurance marketplaces are due to not enough healthy, higher-income individuals using them to purchase health plans. For this reason, the Obama administration recently announced an outreach campaign for the current open enrollment period. If elected, Hillary Clinton would follow in his footsteps. She has pledged $500 million per year to outreach.