Yet another study demonstrates the dramatic effect the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has had on access to health care.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the uninsured rate dropped to 9.1 percent last year, a record low. In 2013, the last year before the PPACA was implemented, the rate stood at 14.4 percent. That suggests over 16 million have gained coverage since the landmark law was implemented over two years ago.
The uninsured rate dropped most dramatically for young adults. Over 30 percent of those aged 18 to 24 were uninsured in 2010; by the end of last year the rate had dropped to 14.5 percent, largely due, no doubt, to a provision of the health law that allows parents to keep their kids on their insurance plans until age 26.
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The age group with the highest uninsured rate are adults between the ages of 25 to 34, 17.9 percent of whom still lack insurance. That is nevertheless a major decline from 2010, when the rate was just under 30 percent.
The uninsured rate for children did not decline as dramatically as for adults. The rate has been declining steadily over the past 15 years, when over 10 percent of children were uninsured. Now only 4.5 percent of children are without coverage.
Obamacare has yielded the greatest benefits for the poor. The uninsured rate for those living in poverty declined from over 40 percent in 2010 to 25.2 percent in 2015. For the "near poor," the trend was nearly identical. The latter group has only a slightly lower uninsured rate of 24.1 percent.
Among adults, the uninsured rate among Hispanics still towers above all other demographic groups at 27.7 percent. But Latinos have also benefited from the greatest boost in coverage; in 2013 the uninsured rate in that group was 40.6 percent. The uninsured rate among blacks also dramatically declined, from roughly 25 percent to 14.4 percent.
Whites and Asians boast the lowest uninsured rates, at 8.7 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.
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