Number of Uninsured Americans Rose to 8.2% in 2024
By Robin Foster HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Aug. 6, 2024 -- Following several years of record low rates of uninsured Americans, a new survey finds more folks are once again without health insurance.
More than 8% of Americans did not have health coverage during the first few months of 2024, according to findings published Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An estimated 27.1 million Americans lacked health insurance through March of this year -- an increase that means 3.4 million more Americans did not have coverage during the first quarter of this year compared to the same time in 2023, when around 7.7% of Americans were uninsured.
Still, the increases are not yet large enough to be considered statistically significant, Christy Hagen, of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, told CBS News.
Experts and health officials have credited the record low uninsured rates of recent years to pandemic-era changes to health insurance. Before 2020, the nation's uninsured rate had peaked at more than 10%.
One big factor had been a pause in states rechecking the eligibility of residents covered by Medicaid, effectively suspending a practice that tends to purge otherwise eligible enrollees from state health insurance rolls.
Those eligibility checks have now returned, with Medicaid slated to finish them in almost all states by the end of this month.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated in June that the rates of Americans not covered by health insurance were likely to worsen even further by 2026, following declines in Medicaid enrollment and the end of temporary subsidies.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office has also forecast that the U.S. uninsured rate would worsen in the coming years.
Sources
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, report, Aug. 5, 2024
- CBS News
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Posted August 2024
Read this next
Poll Reveals Only 17 Percent Think Medicaid Funding Should Be Cut
WEDNESDAY, March 12, 2025 -- Only 17 percent of adults say they want to see Medicaid funding decreased, while 42 percent think funding should increase and 40 percent think it...
RFK Jr. Pushes for Stricter Oversight of Chemicals in Food
WEDNESDAY, March 12, 2025 -- The nation's top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is taking steps to tighten oversight of chemicals in the U.S. food supply, a key component of...
Dozens of Laid-Off CDC Workers Push to Get Their Jobs Back
WEDNESDAY, March 12, 2025 -- A group of former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) employees is fighting to get their jobs back after being abruptly laid off...
More news resources
- FDA Medwatch Drug Alerts
- Daily MedNews
- News for Health Professionals
- New Drug Approvals
- New Drug Applications
- Drug Shortages
- Clinical Trial Results
- Generic Drug Approvals
Subscribe to our newsletter
Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.