In one key aspect, the Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.), President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul, appears to be doing what it was designed to do — increase the number of Americans with health insurance.
A new study shows the number of Americans without health insurance had declined substantially in the first quarter of this year.
Researchers reported last week the first federal measure of the number of uninsured Americans since the A.C.A. extended coverage to millions of people in January.
The number of Americans without health insurance fell by about 8 percent to 41 million people in the first quarter of this year, compared with 2013, a drop that represented about 3.8 million people.
The findings were part of the National Health Interview Survey, which is highly regarded in the industry.
The increase in the number of Americans insured can be attributed to the A.C.A., said Larry Levitt, a director at the Program for the Study of Health Reform and Private Insurance at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research organization.
“Regardless of what you think of the A.C.A., there should be no doubt at this point that the law is increasing the number of people insured,” said Levitt.
The study also found that there was a sharper drop in the shared of uninsured in states that expanded Medicaid than those that did not.
Despite these findings some experts caution that it’s too early to draw conclusions from one quarter of one year about the long-term effect of the new health care law.
Still the new findings do show some progress in reducing the number of uninsured Americans, especially among young people.
At the time of the survey the nation’s uninsured dropped to 13 percent, from about 16 percent in 2010, the highest share of uninsured since 1997 when the National Health Interview Survey began tracking it.
The most significant decline is among the young.
The number of uninsured among 19-to 25-year olds, stood at 21 percent, compared to 27 percent in 2013.
That share has steadily declined since 2010, when a key provision in the A.C.A., allowed dependents to stay on their parents insurance policies until they turned 26.
Date: September 29, 2014