Gains in Coverage under the ACA Continue

The Urban Institute has used its Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) to examine trends in health insurance coverage since the first quarter of 2013, providing timely information on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) before data from federal government surveys are available. An earlier brief drawing on HRMS data through March 2015 found that the share of nonelderly adults (ages 18 to 64) without coverage declined 42.5 percent between September 2013, just before the first open enrollment period for the health insurance Marketplaces established by the ACA, and March 2015, just after the second open enrollment period ended (Long, Karpman, Kenney, Zuckerman et al. 2015). More recently, data from the National Health Interview Survey and other federal and nonfederal surveys have provided additional evidence of coverage gains since implementation of major coverage provisions of the ACA.