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The rate of uninsured Americans fell to 11.9% in the first quarter of 2015, down one percentage point from the end of 2014, according to a Gallup survey. The rate was the lowest since Gallup began tracking it with the Healthways company in 2008, and a sharp decrease from a high of 18% on the eve of the rollout of the Affordable Care Act in the fall of 2013. The polling firm said the rate showed the effects of the health law, but also that it had some distance to go in fulfilling its goals of broadly extending health coverage. (Radnofsky, 4/13)

The law's future is still up in the air, and will turn on factors ranging from an upcoming Supreme Court decision on consumer subsidies to actions by Republican leaders in states opposed to Medicaid expansion. The Gallup-Healthways survey found that the share of adults who lack insurance dropped to 11.9 percent for the first three months of this year, the lowest level since that survey began its tracking in 2008. The latest update overlaps with the period when the health law's second sign-up season was winding down. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 4/13)

In recent years, as millions of individual consumers coped with new and different kinds of health insurance, small businesses got some breathing room. Millions of small businesses nationwide — and an estimated 70% of California's small firms that offer employee health insurance — haven't yet faced all the sweeping changes that resulted from the Affordable Care Act. (Zamosky, 4/12)

[I]t turns out that the health plan for about 900 elite athletes — provided through the U.S. Olympic Committee — fails to meet minimum requirements of the Affordable Care Act. Under the law’s individual mandate, almost all Americans are required to have insurance or face a penalty, which is due when their income taxes are paid. When it became apparent in recent months that athletes could face penalties for the 2014 tax year for having inadequate coverage — through no fault of their own — federal health officials decided to grant exemptions to all affected athletes who apply, according to federal health officials. (Sun, 4/11)

[Rep. Dave] Brat says the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, as envisioned in the House GOP budget proposal, would save “our nation more than $2 trillion.” The congressman, an economist, gets his figure from an outdated CBO estimate of 10-year ACA costs. An updated analysis, published eight days before Brat’s statement, put the cost at $1.75 trillion. But there’s a much larger problem: Brat’s claim only deals with the expense side of the ACA and ignores built-in special taxes and health care efficiencies that the CBO has said more than enable the program to pay for itself. (Fiske, 4/11)