In the first six months of 2017, 28.8 million Americans had no health insurance, about 19.8 million fewer than before Obamacare was signed.
The report from the National Center for Health Statistics notes that there wasn’t a significant difference in the number of uninsured compared to the same period in 2016, when 28.6 million people lacked coverage. The coverage estimates come as Congress debates whether to roll back Obamacare.
The federal data shows that 19.8 million more people had insurance in the first six months of 2017 than in 2010, when Obamacare was signed in to law.
But the data also shows that the percentage of people enrolling in high-deductible plans is increasing. For people under 65, the share of people with private health insurance in a high-deductible plan increased from 39.4 percent in 2016 to 42.9 percent in 2017.
A common critique of Obamacare is that it has caused deductibles to soar alongside increases in premiums.
The estimates from the agency are based on data from 39,480 people surveyed by the center.
Efforts to repeal Obamacare collapsed in the Senate over the summer, but Republicans are hoping to use their tax reform legislation as a vehicle to repeal the law’s individual mandate that everyone buy insurance.
