One Million More Young Adults Have Health Insurance In The USA

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Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 21 Sep 2011 - 18:00 PDT

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According to the CDC, one million more adults in America now have health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act. During the first three months of this year, the number of young adults aged between 19 and 25 with health insurance rose by 3.5 percentage points, equivalent to about one million more people, data from NHIS (National Health Interview Survey) revealed.

Most offspring can now stay on their parents' health insurance plans until they are 26 years of age, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) wrote on its web site today that no other age group had a gain in coverage - the department added that the Affordable Care Act made the difference.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said:

"As a mom, I know how scary it is to think about what could happen to your kids if they go without health care coverage, which is what makes today's news so important. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act hundreds of thousands more young people have the health care coverage they need."

According to a recent Gallup survey, the rates of insured adults aged between 18 and 25 increased from 71% to 75.1% during the second quarter of this year.

Sherry Glied, Ph.D., HHS assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, said:

"Overall, these three national surveys show a consistent pattern of expanded health coverage among young adults due to the Affordable Care Act. The law helped many young adults get the health insurance they need, and it is continuing to expand insurance coverage to uninsured Americans all across the country."

In an issue brief today, the HHS wrote:

"While it is theoretically possible that the increase in insurance coverage for young adults in 2011 is due to some factor other than the Affordable Care Act, it is hard to identify a plausible alternative explanation for the increase in coverage among young adults. One possibility is that the recession did not affect young adults as much as other age groups, but in fact, the opposite occurred.

Unemployment among 20-24 year-olds increased by 7.3 percentage points (from 8.2% to 15.5%) from 2006 to 2010, compared to a 4.8 percentage-point increase among 25-54 year-olds (from 3.8% to 8.6%).[6] Given the toll the recession has taken on employment among young adults, we would expect that insurance rates would, if anything, have decreased in this group compared to older adults. This observation bolsters the conclusion that the increase in coverage among young adults is a result of the Affordable Care Act."

Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January-March 2011

• 46.5 million people of all ages were uninsured, 15.3% of the population - at time of interview
• 60.5 million people of all ages had been uninsured for some time during the 12 months preceding the interview, 19.8% of the population
• 34.2 million people of all ages had been uninsured for more than 12 months preceding the interview, 11.2% of the population
• 6.9% of children under 18 were uninsured at the time of interview
• In 2010 at time of interview 33.9% of young adults aged from 19 to 25 years were uninsured. In 2011 the percentage dropped to 30.4%
• The percentage of near poor adults aged between 18 and 64 with private health insurance coverage dropped from 52.6% in 1997 to 36.1% in 2011. For this population, the uninsured rate was 40.2%, compared to the private coverage rate of 36.1%

Written by Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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