Preliminary data comes from a January 2-19 survey about health insurance
Here’s promising news on the Affordable Care Act front: A new Gallup-Healthways Well-Being survey found a slight drop in the number of Americans without health insurance since major coverage expansion took effect.
The survey, which tallied the responses of more than 9,000 people, shows the uninsured rate for adults fell 1.2 percent in January, to 16.1 percent. That’s about 2 million to 3 million newly insured folks.
The largest declines—6.7 percent among unemployed people, followed by a 2.6 percent decrease among people of color—were seen in groups more likely to be uninsured than the population as a whole.
Other survey findings:
There was a 1.9 percent drop among women and a 0.6 percent decrease among men.
People making $36,000 to $89,999 had a 1.8 percent decline.
There was little change in the uninsured rate among young adultsages 18 to 34.
Experts caution that these findings are early. It could take several months to determine if the decline is a long-term trend.
