The Uninsured Population and Health Coverage | KFF (2024)

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The Uninsured Population and Health Coverage | KFF? ›

The uninsured rate among children (5.1%) was less than half the rate among nonelderly adults (11.3%) in 2022, largely due to the broader availability of Medicaid and CHIP coverage for children than for adults. Among nonelderly adults, men had higher uninsured rates than women in 2022 (12.8% vs. 9.8%).

Despite policy efforts to improve the affordability of coverage, many uninsured people cite the high cost of insurance as the main reason they lack coverage. In 2022, 64% of uninsured nonelderly adults said that they were uninsured because the cost of coverage was too high.

The ACA generated one of the largest expansions of health coverage in U.S. history. In 2010, 16 percent of all Americans were uninsured; by 2016, the uninsured rate hit an all-time low of 9 percent. About 20 million Americans have gained health insurance coverage since the ACA was enacted.

▶ Health Coverage and Uninsured Rates: The ACA reduced the size of the uninsured population by approximately 20 million people from 2010 to 2020, though some of this progress was reversed from 2017- 2019.

In 2022, the uninsured rate for the full population was 8.4 percent. In Q3 2023, the uninsured rate was 7.7 percent,4 which is not significantly different from the estimated uninsured rate of 7.4 percent for the first six months of 2023.

Some uninsured consumers may be eligible for no- or low- cost health insurance through Medicaid or subsidized health insurance through the Marketplace but may be unaware of those options.

In many households, health care costs take up so much of monthly budgets that they affect the ability of people to pay for other living expenses. And the reverse can also be true: when the cost of other living expenses rises, it can affect families' ability to pay for their health care.

ACA provisions will eventually expand insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million uninsured persons, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates that health care reform may still leave 23 million persons, including undocumented immigrants, without any coverage.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded eligibility for affordable health coverage in two main ways: by creating health insurance marketplaces with federal financial assistance that reduces premiums and deductibles and by allowing states to expand Medicaid to adults with household incomes up to 138 percent of the ...

As a result, the ACA helped drop the nation's uninsured rate to an all-time low of 7.2 percent in 2023. Provisions such as expanded Medicaid eligibility and allowing young adults to stay on their parents' plans until age 26 opened new pathways to comprehensive coverage for millions of previously uninsured Americans.

How does lack of insurance affect health care? ›

Lack of health insurance coverage may negatively affect health. Uninsured adults are less likely to receive preventive services for chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

A California single-payer plan doubles down on this issue because it would eliminate virtually all incentives for consumers to control costs. No co-pays and no deductibles mean increased demand for virtually all healthcare, and extraordinary rationing of healthcare.

High rates of uninsurance destabilize local health care systems, putting the health and wellbeing of entire communities at risk. Expanding access to affordable health care benefits both insured and uninsured community members.

Texas was the state with the highest percentage of uninsured among its population, while Massachusetts reported the lowest share of uninsured This statistic presents the percentage of the total population in the United States without health insurance in 2022, by state.

Lack of insurance coverage, high costs, and poor outcomes are well-documented problems in the US health care system, and policies to address them have been hotly debated for decades. However, complexity is another underappreciated problem that hinders access and affordability and is more difficult to quantify.

People of color comprised over 62% of the nonelderly uninsured population in 2022 despite making up about 46% of nonelderly residents. Most uninsured individuals (75.6%) were U.S. citizens, while 24.4% were noncitizens in 2022.

uninsurance has been attributed to a number of factors, including rising health care costs, the economic downturn, an erosion of employer-based insurance, and public program cutbacks. Developing effective strategies for reducing uninsurance requires understanding why people lack insurance coverage.

The ACA's coverage expansions drove a precipitous decline in the uninsured rate, which fell and eliminating prior barriers in the private insurance market for people with pre-existing health conditions, the ACA provided new options for many people who lack access to affordable employer-sponsored health benefits.

Many factors, including economic conditions, federal and state policy changes, and significant health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, influence the uninsured rate.

Due in large part to the lack of affordability of private coverage, uninsured rates are higher for people with lower household incomes, though inequities exist across income levels. (See Figure 11.) Improving health insurance affordability could reduce inequities in health coverage.