The percentage of people with health insurance ticked up slightly last year, with a record 90.9 percent now having coverage, according to Census data released Tuesday.
In 2014, 89.6 percent of Americans had coverage. While the improvement was slight between 2014 and 2015, the insured rate has risen significantly since the 2010 Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid and subsidies for private coverage
The 1.3-percentage-point increase in the insured rate is because of more people getting government healthcare plans and private plans. Private coverage increased by 1.2 percentage points, to reach 67.2 percent last year, while the government coverage rate ticked up 0.6 percentage points to 37.1 percent.
The White House cheered the news, crediting the coverage expansions under Obamacare.
“Every state has seen declines in its uninsured rate since 2013 as the major coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act have taken effect,” the White House said Tuesday morning.
The Census Bureau found that states accepting the law’s Medicaid expansion experienced greater improvements in their insured rates. Healthcare experts said the data shows greater gains could be had if more states expanded their Medicaid programs.
“Further implementation of Affordable Care Act provisions, such as Medicaid expansion for low-income adults in the 19 states that have so far rejected this option, would reduce the number of uninsured even further,” said Helen Levy, a professor at the University of Michigan.
Still, more Americans had coverage last year than the Congressional Budget Office projected after the Supreme Court ruled states could opt out of Medicaid expansion. Twenty-nine million Americans lack coverage, compared to 36 million the CBO had projected would be uninsured in 2015.
Critics of the law argued Tuesday that the expansion is due more to low-income people enrolling in Medicaid than more people buying coverage through the marketplaces.
“The net increase in people with health insurance was 14 million during 2014 and 2015, but more than 11 million of that came from Medicaid,” said Edmund Haislmaier, a reseach fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
But while Medicaid does cover many more Americans now compared to 2013, the data show that even more are now buying plans on their own.
Between 2013 and 2015, 8 million more people enrolled in Medicaid, but 16.5 million more people bought individual market plans both on and off the exchanges.
