How low can Obamacare go? Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans lacked health insurance in 2015, the first time ever in the nation’s history that the uninsured rate has fallen so low, and a clear sign of Obamacare’s impact.
The U.S uninsurance rate fell to 9.1% last year, according to date released earlier this week by the federal Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention. It was the first time the percentage of people without some form of health coverage has gone into single digits.
The new CDC numbers show that the law is succeeding at one of its core aims — i.e., expanding coverage of the uninsured.
Since 2011, when the uninsured rate stood at 15.1%, that rate has fallen 6 full percentage points.
Factors bringing down the uninsured rate include:
Obamacare went into full effect in 2014, the first year people could purchase private insurance plan from the government run marketplace.
Before that, the Affordable Care Act for the first time allowed adults under age 26 to stay on their parent’s health plans.
A third factor was the expansion of Medicaid benefits in a majority of states to cover many more poop adults than had been eligible under the program before.
The Obama administration has said more than 20 million Americans have gained health insurance coverage since the ACA became law in 2010.
“In 2015, 27.7% of Hispanic, 14.4% of non-Hispanic Black, 8.7% of non-Hispanic White, and 7.9% of non-Hispanic Asian adults aged 18-64 lacked health insurance coverage at the time of interview,” the report said.