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ACA helps decrease nation's adult uninsured rate by 30%: Analysis

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ACA helps decrease nation's adult uninsured rate by 30%: Analysis

Aided by health care reform law provisions that took effect at the beginning of 2014, the percentage of uninsured nonelderly adults fell by 30% over a 12-month period, according to a new analysis.

In September 2013, 17.7% of adults between ages 18 through 64 were uninsured. One year later, the uninsured rate had plunged to 12.4%, a 30% drop, according to the Urban Institute analysis conducted for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

That drop in the uninsured rate was, according to the report, due to Patient Protection and Affordable Care provisions — effective Jan. 1, 2014 — that extended premium subsidies to lower-income individuals to purchase coverage in public exchanges and gave states the option to make more people eligible for Medicaid, with the federal government picking up most of the expansion cost.

“These new survey data provide more evidence that there has been a significant expansion of coverage to millions who were previously uninsured, thanks to marketplace plans and the expansion of Medicaid,” Katherine Hempstead, who directs coverage issues at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey, said in a statement.

The impact of the Medicaid expansion, under which states can extend coverage to individuals earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, in reducing uninsured rates, is especially striking.

For example, in states that did not expand Medicaid, the uninsured rate among nonelderly adults dropped to 15.1% in September 2013, down from 19.9% a year earlier, while among states that expanded Medicaid, the uninsured rate during that same 12-month period fell to 10.2% from 16.1%.

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