Thanks, Obama. While there are still some real problems with Obamacare, there is no denying that it is helping millions of people. Continuing the trend we've seen in regular Gallup and National Health Interview surveys, the percentage of the uninsured has reached another historical low.
WASHINGTON—The number of uninsured people in the U.S. remained at a historic low in early 2016, according to a federal survey that found 8.6% of respondents without health coverage at the time of the interview.
That translates to about 27.3 million people who lacked medical insurance when they were asked about it between January and March as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey. The previous survey, covering the whole of 2015, had put the figure at 9.1%, or about 1.3 million more people. CDC officials said the latest reduction wasn’t statistically significant. […]
Hispanic adults aged 18 to 64 were significantly more likely to be uninsured, with 24.5% of those interviewed reporting they lacked a health plan at the time of the interview.
For white respondents the figure was 8.4%, while among black respondents 13% said they didn’t have coverage.
There's still work to be done. For example, there has been a "notable uptick in people enrolled in a high-deductible health plan," which have lower premiums and which employers are increasingly choosing to reduce their share of the costs of providing coverage.
But what's absolutely undeniable is that there are millions of people who can now get insurance regardless of their health history, and there are millions of people who can get preventive care and annual checkups with no additional copays. Considering how hard the political fight against the simple idea that everyone should have access to health insurance has been, Obamacare has been remarkably successful.