According to new statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of Americans without health insurance has increased.
About 8 percent of Americans of all ages were uninsured in March, according to the CDC’s quarterly National Health Interview Survey released Aug. 6. In March 2023, that figure was 7.7 percent. More than a million working-age adults and 700,000 under 18 lost their insurance coverage during the year.
That’s the highest rate since before the coronavirus pandemic and follows a trend of consistently low uninsured rates in the U.S. over the past few years, which Biden administration officials have highlighted as a success in America’s recovery from COVID-19.
In 2023, the rate of uninsured people fell below 8 percent for four consecutive quarters. Before 2020, there was a peak in the national uninsured rate when it exceeded 10 percent.
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The low number of uninsured Americans is largely due to the expiration of federal health care policy that prohibited states from re-determining Medicaid enrollment eligibility during the pandemic. Medicaid provides health insurance to low-income individuals and families and covers about one in five people nationwide.
As of August 1 of this year, nearly 25 million people had lost their Medicaid coverage as states began recalculating eligibility, according to health policy group KFF. Many of those people have found health insurance through other providers or may still be waiting to be re-approved.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that more Americans are likely to lose their insurance in the coming years. “The rate in 2034 is estimated at 8.9 percent – higher than in the 2021-2023 period, but lower than the rate of 10.0 percent in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic,” the office said in June.
The largest increase in the uninsured population between this year and 2034 is expected to be among those ages 19 to 44. Those over 65 are the most insured because of Medicare coverage. The number of people over 65 covered by Medicare is expected to rise from 60 million in 2023 to 74 million in 2034.
An increase in immigration will also likely lead to an increase in the number of uninsured people, as new immigrants are “significantly less likely to have health insurance than the general population,” the CBO predicts.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also expect the number of people without health insurance to return to pre-pandemic levels in two years.