The nation's uninsured rate is on track to hit a historic low helped by new PPACA enrollees.
The news comes from a study by the Council of Economic Advisers, which found that the drop in the nation's uninsured rate so far in 2014 is the largest over any period since the early 1970s when Medicaid and Medicare were expanded. About 9.7 million gained health care in PPACA's first year.
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"With this year's decline, the nation's uninsured rate is now at or near the lowest level recorded across five decades of data," wrote Jason Furman and Matt Fieldler of the CEA. "Furthermore, new data out today on Medicaid enrollment and data on Marketplace plan selections from earlier this week show that progress in reducing the number of uninsured Americans is continuing."
The group cited new data released this week from the National Center for Health Statistics' National Health Interview Survey that showed that the number of Americans without health insurance stood at 11.3 percent during the second half of 2014. That's down from 13.1 percent in the first quarter and from 14.4 percent on average during 2013
Earlier this month, Urban Institute analysis conducted for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the number of uninsured adults fell from 17.7 percent in September 2013 to 12.4 percent in September 2014.
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