Percentage of people in the U.S. without health insurance 1997-2023

In 2023, 7.6 percent of all people in the United States didn't have health insurance. The share of Americans without health insurance saw a steady increase from 2015 to 2019 before starting to decline in 2020 to 2023. Factors like implementation of Medicaid expansion in additional states and growth in private health insurance coverage led to the decline in uninsured population, despite the economic challenges due to the pandemic in 2020. 

More coverage after Obamacare

The groups who saw the biggest improvement in health insurance coverage after the ACA was enacted were Hispanic and Black Americans. Meanwhile, the share of White Americans without health insurance also fell due to Obamacare, but the drop in that group wasn’t as dramatic as in other ethnic groups. This is primarily due to the fact that the uninsured rate among White Americans was much lower pre-ACA than among any other group, so there was less room for improvement.

ACA was especially significant for those with low income

Although the ACA was signed into law in 2010, many of its major provisions didn’t come into force until 2014, which accounts for the sharp drop in Americans without health insurance in 2014. Adults with a family income lower than 200% of Federal Poverty Level (FPL) were especially impacted by the law, as the share of uninsured adults in this income group dropped 14 percent between 2013 and 2015.