September 10, 2012: A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) looks at insurance coverage estimates from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) as an indicator of what we might see in the US Census Bureau’s soon-to-be-released 2011 Current Population Survey (CPS) coverage estimates.
The author of the CBPP report, Matt Broaddus, highlights the fact that the largest increase in coverage occurred among young adults aged 19 through 25, who saw a 5.2 percentage point year-over-year increase in private coverage based on NHIS estimates. To explain this jump, Broaddus points to the provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that extends eligibility for young adult dependent coverage until age 26. Broaddus notes that coverage for the subsequent age group—those aged 26 through 35—actually decreased by 0.7 percentage points in 2011, underscoring the impact of the ACA’s young adult coverage provision.
Broaddus’s findings support those of Joel Cantor, Director of the Rutgers University Center for State Health Policy, who recently published findings from his SHARE-funded research in a paper for HSR titled, “Early Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage of Young Adults.” Based on models using the 2005 to 2011 CPS, Dr. Cantor concludes that the ACA’s young adult dependent coverage provision led to a “rapid and substantial” increase in the share of young adults with dependent coverage and a reduction in their uninsured rate in the early months of the provision’s implementation.