Here's very positive year-end news: 2.5 million young Americans have health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of young adults lacking medical coverage has shrunk by 2.5 million since the new health care overhaul law took effect, according to a new analysis the Obama administration is to release Wednesday.
That drop is 2½ times as large as the drop indicated by previous government and private estimates from earlier this year, which showed about 1 million Americans ages 19-25 had gained coverage.
Administration officials said they now have more data. They say they're also slicing the numbers more precisely than the government usually does, trying to pinpoint the impact of a popular provision in an otherwise politically divisive law.
You can see how they slice that data in their issue brief. What this basically means is that there are millions fewer uninsured people in the United States, particularly when you consider what the recession has done to the 26-35 age group and insurance coverage, as demonstrated in the graph up above. Without the ability for people up to age 26 to remain on their parents' insurance plans, the crisis of the uninsured in America would be substantially worse.