About 16.4 million uninsured Americans have gained health coverage ever since President Obama’s healthcare law was passed, according to survey data released Monday by the administration.
Those numbers represent the largest change in the uninsured in four decades. About 13 percent of Americans remains uninsured, but that’s dropped from 20 percent right before the law’s biggest coverage provisions went into effect.
“When it comes to the key metrics of affordability, access, and quality, the evidence shows that the Affordable Care Act is working, and families, businesses and taxpayers are better off as a result,” HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a statement.
The majority of the formerly uninsured gained coverage in two ways: by buying private health plans — often subsidized by the federal government — on new online insurance marketplaces or by signing up for Medicaid which has been expanded in about half the states.
A smaller segment of Americans ages 19 to 25 gained coverage through a part of the law requiring insurers to continue covering them on their parents’ plans.
Officials said they don’t have breakdowns of the venues through which the 16.4 million people gained their health coverage, as the data is obtained by estimating the uninsured rate. The data was gathered by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey through March 4.
