Nearly nine out of 10 U.S. adults now say they have health insurance.
At 11.9 percent in the first quarter of 2015, this is the lowest uninsured rate since tracking began in 2008, according to a new Gallup-Healthways Well-Being survey.
More specifically, all racial demographic groups have seen their uninsured rate drop.
Since the end of 2014 to the beginning of 2015, whites have seen their uninsured rate drop from 11.9 percent to 7.7 percent. The rate of uninsured blacks and uninsured Hispanics has dropped from 20.9 percent to 13.6 percent and 38.7 percent to 30.4 percent over that same period, respectively.
Roughly 14 percent of all Americans were uninsured in 2008, peaking at 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013. Since the Affordable Care Act went into place at the beginning of 2014, uninsured rates have continued to drop, the survey found. From the third quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015, the percentage of all uninsured Americans has fallen 5.2 percentage points, from 17.1 to 11.9
“The significant drop in uninsured Hispanics is a key accomplishment for the Obama administration, which led targeted efforts to insure this group as they had the highest uninsured population of all key subgroups,” pollsters concluded.
“However, despite the gains in insurance coverage among Hispanics and lower-income Americans, these groups still have higher uninsured rates than other key subgroups,” they said.
The telephone-based survey of roughly 43,500 Americans was conducted from Jan. 2-March 31 with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
