The federal government conducted it's first ever survey of the rate insured people in the country. Their data revealed that there is a significant decrease in the number of adults, particularly young adults, who have no coverage.
According to the National Health Interview Survey, the number of adults below the age of 65 who did not have health insurance has dropped from 20.4% in 2013 two just 18.4% this year. The survey was released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and provided a partial picture about the potential effects of the federal health law. This survey showed that, at the beginning of the year, the most prominent decrease in the rate of uninsured coverage was among adults between the ages of 19 and 25, dropping to 20.9% this year from 26.5% last year. Researchers believe that this is because of an amendment in the health law allowing parents or heads of families to include their children on their insurance plans up to the age of 26. Similarly, the number of young adults who are enrolling themselves to public insurance, like Medicaid, has increased to over 19% this year, which is more than the reported 16.1% in 2013.
On the other hand, data from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement showed that there are still about 42 million people, equivalent to nearly 14% of the population, that do not have any type of health insurance coverage. The figure that is only slightly less sorry than the 14.5% in 2013. This survey is usually the benchmark for the uninsured rate in the country, but it was not able to come up with a more accurate accounting of statistics this year since it mainly only covered data from last year, thus missing the expansion of the health law coverage that occurred this year.
