Total number of uninsured fell by 3.8M in first three months of 2014

From January to March the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 3.8 million, which brought the average percentage of people without health insurance to 13.1 percent, down 1.3 percent from the 2013 average, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

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The survey findings are similar to other recent studies on the uninsured rate, such as a Gallup poll that determined the uninsured rate decreased 4.6 percent between the third quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2014, bringing the uninsured rate down to 13.4 percent.

The government survey 6.6 percent of children up to age 17 were uninsured in the first three months of this year, which was a slight increase from the 2013 average of 6.5 percent.

The survey findings were consistent with a recent Urban Institute survey that found the uninsured rate for Americans under the age of 18 remained steady at about 7 percent between the third quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2014.

However, there is some hope for the children’s uninsured rate, as the Urban Institute survey revealed 55.8 percent of uninsured children qualify for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program but are yet to be enrolled.

More articles on the uninsured rate:

10 states with sharpest drop in uninsured rate in 2014 
What will states lose by not expanding Medicaid? 
7 states with highest, lowest uninsured rates post-PPACA 

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