A new report has upped the estimated number of people who have gained health insurance through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The Department of Health and Human Services now estimates that 17.6 million Americans are insured because of the law, up from the previous estimate of 16.4 million that was released in March.
“Five years in, millions of people have new coverage and the percentage of the uninsured has been reduced to the lowest level on record," said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell during an address at the Howard University College of Medicine. "We now have a new opportunity before us to build on this progress.”
Burwell also outlined the ways in which the situation could improve. Millions remain uninsured and still have the opportunity to get insurance during the upcoming open enrollment period.
HHS estimates that 10.5 million Americans are eligible to get marketplace coverage during that period. These are generally people whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid but who do not receive insurance through an employer.
HHS has identified five priority target areas with high numbers of eligible people without insurance: Dallas, Houston, northern New Jersey, Chicago and Miami.
Much of the outreach will focus on young people, since the department estimates that half of the uninsured eligible for exchange plans are between the ages of 18 and 34. Getting more young people onto the exchanges will also further bolster the long-term prospects of the marketplaces and hopefully drive premiums down.
Among those eligible for the marketplaces, 19 percent are Hispanic, 14 are African American, 2 percent are Asian and 67 percent are white.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 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.
