NCHS and Census Release Data on Health Insurance Coverage
New statistics released by the federal government last week provide insight into the number of Americans without insurance in 2013 and the first quarter of 2014 (after the insurance coverage expansion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had gone into effect). The Census Bureau published Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2013, based on data from the 2014 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC), which found that 42 million people, 13.4 percent of Americans, had no health insurance for the entirety of 2013.
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), released Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey [NHIS], January-March 2014.This report found that in the first quarter of 2014, 41 million people (13.1 percent) were uninsured at the time of the interview, and 165.8 million people (61.8 percent) were covered by private health insurance plans–including 3.7 million people (1.4 percent) who obtained coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace or state-based exchanges. This data may not be reflective of the surge in enrollment under the ACA that occurred late in the first quarter of 2014.
For more on these statistics, see COSSA’s report from the September 8, 2014 edition of Update.