Gallup does polls about all kinds of things. They ask people specific questions, and keep track of the answers. According to Gallup, fewer young adults in the United States lacked health insurance coverage in 2012 than that age group did in previous years.
In 2010, a specific provision of the Affordable Care Act went into affect. As of September 23, 2010, young adults who were between the ages of 18 and 26 were able to be covered by their parent’s health insurance policies. Previous to this health reform law, insurers were only allowing parents to include coverage for their children who were under the age of 18.
The law was created in order to find a way for young adults to gain health insurance coverage. At the time, young adults were frequently going without coverage because they could not afford it and they lacked the type of jobs that would offer employer sponsored health insurance.
Gallup has been keeping track of health insurance coverage rates daily since January of 2008. A survey done in 2011 showed that health insurance rates for young adults rose from 71% in the first quarter of 2010 to 75% by the end of June 2011.
A recent Gallup poll shows that in the first quarter of 2012, 24.5% of Americans who were between the ages of 18 and 25 said that they did not have health insurance coverage. In the fourth quarter of 2012, 22.7% of Americans in that age group said that they lacked coverage.
Fewer young adults lacked health insurance by the end of 2012 than at the beginning. The 22.7% who were uninsured in the fourth quarter of 2012 is down six percentage points from the high of 28.7% found in the third quarter of 2009. Gallup has this to say:
The group that seems the most impacted by the Affordable Care Act so far continues to be young adults. No other demographic or socioeconomic group appears to be experiencing significant changes as of yet. However, with 2014 – the year the individual mandate and health insurance exchanges go into full effect – fast-approaching, it is likely uninsured rates across all groups will begin to change.
Image by Genevieve719 on Flickr