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The percentage of millennials who lack major medical coverage may have soared since 2016.
Analysts from the Transamerica Center for Health Studies are reporting new survey results that show loss of Medicaid coverage and individual major medical coverage has wiped out increased use of group health coverage.
About 16 percent of millennials lacked health coverage in late 2018, up from 11 percent in 2016, according to Transamerica center analysts.
Related: Who are America's uninsured?
The center analysts based their figures on an online survey of 3,604 U.S. adults ages 18 to 64 that was conducted in August 2018.
The center defines “millennials” as being people born from 1980 through 1997. The analysts classified 1,172 the survey participants as millennials.
Here's what happened to specific types of millennial coverage use (or lack of use) between 2016 and 2018:
- Employer health benefits: 50 percent (up from 45 percent)
- Medicaid (or a similar program): 11 percent (down from 14 percent)
- Medicare: 2 percent (down from 3 percent)
- Individual major medical insurance, purchased through or outside of the Affordable Care Act public exchange system: 7 percent (down from 14 percent)
- Uninsured: 16 percent (up from 11 percent)
The survey also detected what could be a statistical fluke but could be a sign of the health effects of millennials' reduced use of health insurance: the percentage of millennial survey participants who described themselves as being “unable to work due to a disability or illness” increased to 2 percent in 2017 and 2018, up from a five-year low of 1 percent in 2016.
The analysts also found that millennials have a strong interest in the debate about the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
About 30 percent of the millennial participants said they were very or extremely aware of potential changes to health care policy, compared with 20 percent of the Baby Boomers in the sample, 20 percent of the members of Generation X, and 23 percent of the members of the post-millennial generation, Gen Z.
|Resources
A copy of the millennials survey report is available here.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
