The number of uninsured people in the U.S. remained at a historic low in early 2016, according to a federal survey that found 8.6% of respondents without health coverage at the time of the interview.
That translates to about 27.3 million people who lacked medical insurance when they were asked about it between January and March as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey. The previous survey, covering the whole of 2015, had put the figure at 9.1%, or about 1.3 million more people. CDC officials said the latest reduction wasn’t statistically significant.
For supporters of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the data show the law has had an impact in its stated goal of lowering the number of people without coverage, through a combination of public and private health insurance. The uninsured rate, according to the CDC survey, stood at 16% in 2010, the year the law was passed, and 14.4% in 2013, the year before its main provisions were implemented.
Skeptics typically argue that the results are lackluster compared with the law’s costs.
The 2016 analysis was based on a sample of 24,317 people, CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics said.
Other figures from the survey released Wednesday show the challenges still facing the individual health insurance market after the broad changes brought about by the health law, chiefly its requirement that insurers sell to everyone at the same price regardless of their medical history or risk.
Health plans say premiums will continue to rise unless the number and makeup of enrollees change significantly, with more young, healthy individuals signing up for coverage to balance the costly claims incurred by older and less healthy people who currently have it.
But the increase in the past 12 months in the number of people using HealthCare.gov or a state equivalent to obtain individual private coverage wasn’t statistically significant, the agency said.
And the young consumers prized by insurers are almost twice as likely to be uninsured as older ones. Some 15.9% of 25-to-34-year-olds were uninsured in early 2016, the survey found. Among 45-to-64-year-olds, only 8.1% were uninsured.
Hispanic adults aged 18 to 64 were significantly more likely to be uninsured, with 24.5% of those interviewed reporting they lacked a health plan at the time of the interview.
For white respondents the figure was 8.4%, while among black respondents 13% said they didn’t have coverage.
Separately, the figures also show a notable uptick in people enrolled in a high-deductible health plan, which have become popular offerings by employers and individual insurers in recent years as the enrollee bears a greater share of the costs in exchange for lower premiums.
Around 40% of people under age 65 were in such a plan when interviewed earlier this year, the CDC said. That proportion has steadily climbed from 25.3% in 2010.