Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Number Of Uninsured Dropped By 8.8M In Health Law's First Year, Official Survey Finds
The share of poor Americans who were uninsured declined substantially in 2014, according to the first full year of federal data since the Affordable Care Act extended coverage to millions of Americans last year. The drop was largely in line with earlier findings by private polling companies such as Gallup, but was significant because of its source — the National Health Interview Survey, a long-running federal survey considered to be a gold standard by researchers. The findings are being released on Tuesday. (Taversnise, 6/23)
Millions of people gained health insurance last year as Affordable Care Act benefits took effect, according to the first official accounting by the federal government. In 2014, 36 million U.S. residents, or 11.5 percent of the population, were uninsured on the day they were surveyed, a decline of 8.8 million people and 2.9 percentage points from the year before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health Interview Survey. The Affordable Care Act remains unpopular, and is besieged politically and legally. The Republican-controlled Congress continues efforts to unwind the law, GOP presidential hopefuls vow to shepherd its repeal and the Supreme Court is poised to rule on a lawsuit conceived by conservative and libertarian activists that would undo much of Obamacare's expansion of health coverage. (Young, 6/23)
The share of working-age people without health insurance fell by more than 4 percentage points in 2014, the biggest drop since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began reporting the data in 1997. Last year, 16.3 percent of adults under age 65, or about 31.7 million people, lacked medical coverage, according to a CDC survey published Tuesday. That’s down from 20.4 percent a year earlier. (Burger, 6/23)
Earlier related KHN coverage: (Rovner, 6/12)
Meanwhile, The Philadelphia Inquirer polled a group of experts to find out how they approach the pros and cons of long-term care insurance -
Only a dozen or so insurers still sell policies covering it, but one thing hasn't changed: Long-term care is still extraordinarily expensive. The median outlay for a private room in a nursing home was $240 a day ($87,600 a year) in 2014, more than twice the average household income of seniors. And consumers are reluctant to buy the insurance, according to a 2015 study by Wharton School professors Olivia Mitchell and Daniel Gottlieb. (Arvedlund, 6/22)
