The number of uninsured working adults in the United States, and the number of adults who reported having trouble paying their health bills, both dropped in 2014 as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act began to take effect.
That's what the Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey, 2014, reported. The survey results, the fund said, "indicate that the Affordable Care Act's subsidized insurance options and consumer protections reduced the number of uninsured working-age adults from an estimated 37 million people, or 20 percent of the population, in 2010 to 29 million, or 16 percent, by the second half of 2014."
The researchers also credited the law with leading to the first decline in the "number of people who report cost-related access problems and medical-related financial difficulties."
Recommended For You
The raw numbers: "The number of adults who did not get needed health care because of cost declined from 80 million people, or 43 percent, in 2012 to 66 million, or 36 percent, in 2014. The number of adults who reported problems paying their medical bills declined from an estimated 75 million people in 2012 to 64 million people in 2014."
Commonwealth's annual survey had shown a growing percent of the U.S. adult population going without health coverage since 2001, rising from 15 percent of the population to 20 percent by 2010. The number reporting payment struggles rose as high as 41 percent in 2012, compared to 34 percent in 2005 when tracking began. The number of those who delayed care showed a similar trend.
Commonwealth identified another trend that has previously received attention: the access to care disparity that exists between states that expanded their Medicaid programs and those in states that did not. The difference: 19 percent of adults below the poverty line in states with expanded Medicaid don't have coverage compared with 35 percent in states without the expanded version.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
