Uninsured Up 3.5 Million Amid Health Care Uncertainty, Survey Finds

The following article by Griffin Connolly was posted on the Roll Call website October 20, 2017:

After reaching record low in 2016, uninsured rate has steadily crept up as 2010 health law’s future remains uncertain

President Donald Trump announced last week his administration is ending cost-sharing reduction payments that help insurance companies pay part of lower- and middle-income people’s coverage costs. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Roughly 3.5 million more Americans are uninsured compared to the last quarter of 2016, a new survey found.

An ongoing Gallup-Sharecare survey that has asked at least 500 randomly sampled people each day since 2008 whether they have insurance shared its 2017 third-quarter results Friday.

The uninsured rate among adults was 12.3 percent as of Sept. 30. That’s up 1.4 percent from the third and fourth quarters of 2016, when the uninsured rate reached a record low of 10.9 percent.

The number and rate of uninsured Americans will likely continue to creep upward without Congress and President Donald Trump taking steps to “stabilize the insurance markets,” according to an analysis of the survey released by Gallup on Friday. Continue reading “Uninsured Up 3.5 Million Amid Health Care Uncertainty, Survey Finds”