For the first time in four years, the amount of uninsured Americans dropped.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual report released Wednesday, about 1.4 million more people had health coverage in 2011 than in 2010.
The ones who benefitted the most were 19- to 25-year-olds. Young adults saw the greatest increase in coverage, according to the report.
Under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, young adults can remain on their parents’ plans until they are 26. Previously, young adults could not be covered by their parents’ plans upon turning 19 or graduating from college.
Paul Duncan, director of the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured, said he was surprised by the Census report. He said he had been estimating the amount to increase — not decrease, as it did — from 50 million uninsured in 2010 to 50.4 million.
Duncan, who also serves as a UF professor and chair of the Department of Health Services Research, Management and Policy, attributed the decrease to the young adult demographic. Their benefit from the Affordable Care Act can account for most of the overall improvement, he said.
“I think it’s terrific for the structure of our health insurance system in the United States,” Duncan said. “The inclusion of relatively healthy people among the insured makes the health insurance pool of our nation financially stronger.”
The Affordable Care Act affected UF biology junior Celine Rodrigues’ family life.
When Rodrigues, 20, first moved to the U.S. from Trinidad, her family did not have insurance for three years. But now, Rodrigues’ older sister Daniela is insured on their parents’ plan while she attends medical school in Dominica.
Rodrigues is appreciative.
“With the way the economy is, it’s hard to expect people right out of college to be able to pay for insurance,” she said.
While the amount of insured 19- to 25-year-olds showed a 2.2 percent increase, other age groups did not show much improvement. Many Affordable Care Act provisions that would change that have not yet been implemented.
Still, 15.7 percent of Americans do not have insurance.
UF journalism senior Valeria Delgado, 22, is among the 48.6 million Americans who remain uninsured. She said a lot of her friends are in the same situation.
Delgado has had strep throat 14 times. She would have gotten her tonsils removed when she was younger, but with neither parent insured, “we just couldn’t afford it.”
“I’m uninsured because I can’t afford it,” Delgado said. “With the new Health Care Act, it’s definitely something I’m looking into, but I don’t know how affordable it’ll actually be.”
