The percentage of Americans without health insurance continues to drop as more people sign up for plans set up by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a new report.
The most recent federal data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics shows 7 million fewer Americans without insurance since the PPACA's implementation in January 2014. The data shows an uninsured rate of 13 percent in the first three months of 2015, a drop from 16.3 percent a year before.
While the largest group of new enrollees signed up for their plans at the beginning of 2014, millions more have continued to sign up since. The number of adults enrolled in the federal or state insurance exchanges increased from 6.7 million during the last three months of 2014 to 9.7 million during the first three months of 2015.
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While most of the individuals who gained coverage did so through the exchanges, more people are also enrolled in Medicaid, which was expanded in many states with federal funds through the PPACA. The percentage of adults covered by public health plans rose from 17.1 percent to 18.1 percent.
That so many more people signed up for the exchanges instead of Medicaid, which was supposed to be a key part of the PPACA, may be explained in part by the fact that many Republican governors refused the additional federal funds for Medicaid. Because those states did not expand Medicaid eligibility, more people had to seek insurance through the exchanges.
States that engaged in all aspects of the PPACA by setting up their own exchanges and expanding Medicaid have generally seen the largest drops in the number of uninsured. As a recent Gallup poll indicated, the states saw the biggest drops were Arkansas and Kentucky, whose Democratic governors both embraced the PPACA last year. Arkansas' uninsured rate dropped 13.5 percent, while Kentucky's decreased 11.4 percent.
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