Number of Insured Americans under ACA increased in 2014

According to new federal figures, the proportion of Americans who lack health insurance fell markedly last year. These new figures also provide the strongest evidence to date of how the Affordable Care Act is driving changes in health coverage department across the country. The new figures were released on Wednesday from a large annual Census Bureau survey that measured Americans’ well-being in several ways. The survey found that nearly 9 million more people had coverage in 2014 than the year before. The share of people uninsured throughout the year fell to 10.4 per cent from 13.3 per cent in 2013.

Most of the more than 200 million Americans with private health plans still receive their coverage through their jobs. But the sharpest increase among all the categories of health insurance last year was seen for the people who bought a plan on their own. This also included the kind of insurance policies sold through federal and state marketplaces created under the health law. Apart from this the second largest increase was noticed in Medicaid, the public insurance program for the poor.

The figures from the survey also showed a less heartening side of Americans well-being. The figures indicated that the typical American’s earnings remained stagnant and that the country made no gains in narrowing the huge gap between the rich and the poor. As a result, the top 5 per cent of Americans accounted for more than one-fifth of all income in 2014 while the bottom 20 per cent earned just 3 per cent of the total income. For US households, median wages last year were $53,657. This figure was almost the same in 2013 while it was 6.5 percent less than in 2007, before the Great Recession. This gap between the “rich” and “poor” was unchanged from the last year and remained at its broadest point since 1993, the earliest year for which comparable data exists.

The survey also made it clear that the odds of having health insurance vary substantially across the country, depending on an individual’s income. The stats go like this: About 1 in 6 people with incomes of $25,000 or less had no coverage, compared with about 1 in 20 people earning $100,000 or more. Along with this, racial and ethnic disparities also persist. Nearly 1 in 5 Hispanics remained uninsured last year, compared with fewer 1 in 10 whites. Even though the gains in coverage are undeniably good standing at about twice the last year for Hispanics, African Americans and Asians than for whites, these disparities lingered.