News Releases

CDC Reports a Rise in the Number of Uninsured Americans After Record Lows

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released new survey findings indicating that 8.2% of Americans did not have health insurance in the first quarter of 2024. This increase from 7.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023 breaks a streak of record low uninsured rates that have occurred since the pandemic-era changes to health coverage.

This news comes soon after the CDC released a promising report in June 2024 that indicated a drop in the U.S. uninsured rate by 26% since 2019 and highlighted a 2023 10.9% uninsured rate for adults 19-64, compared to 14.7% in 2019. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts the rate of the uninsured will continue to increase, driven by Medicaid disenrollment and the ending of Affordable Care Act subsidies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, states adjusted their rules for Medicaid eligibility by suspending eligibility redeterminations in compliance with federal continuous coverage requirements that enabled them to receive additional federal Medicaid funding. These changes enabled more uninsured Americans to gain and maintain coverage than in the year preceding the pandemic, 2019, when the uninsured rate was approximately 10%. But with Medicaid unwinding — the process of restarting eligibility determinations that are resulting in the removal of enrollees — the rate of uninsured has risen.

According to KFF, more than 24.8 million people have been disenrolled from Medicaid since March 2023. While the total number of Americans with public coverage has gone down, there has been no change in the number of adults under 65 with private insurance as the last quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2023 both saw 176.7 million insured in this age range.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates the rates of insured Americans will worsen to pre-pandemic levels by 2026, due in part to declines in Medicaid enrollment and the end of temporary subsidies. This estimate is in line with forecasts by the CBO in their projections release in June 2024, which anticipates an uninsured rate of 8.9% in the year 2034. These numbers could be fueled by the expiration of enhanced subsidies that offset the premiums for marketplace plans, unless Congress chooses to extend them.