Politics
Obama Health care helping more young adults access health insurance
First, there is more data available now than earlier this year. Secondly, analysts are slicing the numbers more precisely than the government usually does.
The health care law’s main push to cover the uninsured doesn’t come until 2014. But the young adults’ provision took effect last fall, and most workplace health plans started carrying it out January 1. Since then, families have flocked to sign up adult children making the transition to work in a challenging environment.
The overall fate of Obama’s law remains uncertain, with the Supreme Court scheduled to hear a constitutional challenge next year, and Republican presidential candidates vowing to repeal it. But this provision seems to have gotten a seal of approval from consumers.
“The increase in coverage among 19- to 25-year-olds can be directly attributed to the Affordable Care Act’s new dependent coverage provision,” said the HHS analysis.
Using unpublished quarterly statistics from the government’s ongoing National Health Interview Survey, analysts in Sebelius’ policy office determined that nearly 36 percent of those age 19-25 were uninsured in the third calendar quarter of 2010, before the law’s provision took effect.
That translates to more than 10.5 million people.
By the second calendar quarter of 2011, the proportion of uninsured young adults had dropped to a little over 27 percent, or about 8 million people.
The difference, nearly 2.5 million getting coverage, can only be the result of the health care law, administration officials said, because the number covered by public programs like Medicaid went down slightly. Overall, nearly 30 million Americans are ages 19 to 25.
