Credit: Allison Bell/ALM
Employer-sponsored health plans and other private plans seem to be covering more Americans, but people with income over 400% of the federal poverty level are less likely to have any coverage.
The National Center for Health Statistics, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put the numbers telling that story in a new batch of results from the National Health Interview Survey program.
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The number of people under age 65 with some kind of employer-sponsored or individual private health coverage increased to 1.4% between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the fourth quarter of 2023, to 176.4 million.
But, for survey participants with income over 400% of the federal poverty line, the percentage with private coverage fell to 89.9%, from 90.8%.
The percentage who were uninsured increased to 3.5%, from 2.8%, for high-income people of all ages; to 4.5%, from 3.7%, for high-income people ages 18 through 64; and to 2%, from 1.8%, for high-income children.
One reason for the increase in the uninsured rate for high-income people could be the end of tax incentives, subsidies and other arrangements designed to help people at all income levels keep health coverage in place while the COVID-19 pandemic was making headlines.
In most of the United States, 400% of the 2024 federal poverty level is $60,240 for an individual and $124,800 for a family of four.
Related: Uninsured rate on the decline: But who goes without health insurance?
The overall percentage of people of all ages with private coverage fell to 60.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023, from 61.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
But the total percentage who were uninsured fell to 7.7%, from 8.3%, thanks to an increase in the percentage of low-income and moderate-income people covered by public health programs.
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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.
