The U.S. uninsured rate fell to 9 percent during the first half of this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday.
In its fullest picture yet of how Obamacare has changed the insurance landscape, the CDC said 9 percent of all people in the country and 12.7 of all non-senior adults now lack health coverage, a sizable reduction from before the Affordable Care Act went into effect.
The data are based on a survey conducted from January to June with 54,097 people. During that period, 7.5 million more people had health insurance than in 2014 and 16.3 million more were insured compared to 2013.
A separate survey also released Thursday finds a large improvement in the country’s uninsured rate, which for years had been dramatically higher than that of other developed countries. The share of uninsured, non-senior adults dropped from 17.6 percent in September 2013 to 10.4 percent in September 2015, according to a new analysis funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and conducted by the Urban Institute.
Amid ongoing concerns about the price of health coverage and steep failures among Obamacare co-cops, the drop in the uninsured rate is a bright spot for the Obama administration, which has worked hard to spread the news of coverage opportunities the healthcare law provides for low-income people. The third season for open enrollment in the law’s new insurance marketplaces opened on Sunday and lasts through the end of January.
The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t initially respond to a request for comment.
