U.S. Uninsured Rate Dropped 18% During Pandemic

The overall number of Americans without health insurance dropped by 5.6 million from 2019 to 2022. These findings are included in a new report released by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

The findings are featured in the report, “Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 2022.” It shows that among working-age Americans (those ages 18–64), 12.2% did not have health insurance in 2022, a decrease from 14.7% in 2019.

Highlights from the report include:

• 4% or 27.6 million Americans of all ages did not have health insurance in 2022 compared to 10.3% or 33.2 million in 2019.
• In the same time period, 4.2% or 3 million children did not have health insurance compared with 5.1% or 3.7 million in 2019.
• Almost two-thirds of people under age 65 were covered by private health insurance, and more than a quarter (27.8%) were covered by public health insurance in 2022.
• Among White, non-Hispanic adults aged 18–64, the percentage who were uninsured decreased by almost 30% from 10.5% in 2019 to 7.4% in 2022.
• In 2022, more than 1 in 4 Hispanic adults ages 18–64 (27.6%) lacked health insurance, a greater percentage than Black, non-Hispanic adults (13.3%), White, non-Hispanic adults (7.4%) and Asian, non-Hispanic adults (7.1%).
• Adults ages 18–64 who live in non-Medicaid expansion states (19.2%) were twice as likely to be uninsured compared to those living in Medicaid expansion states (9.1%) in 2022.
• The percentage of Americans under age 65 with exchange-based private health insurance increased 16% from 3.7% in 2019 to 4.3% in 2022.

Due to changes in various methodological aspects of the National Health Interview Survey, this report only presents trends starting with 2019.  Direct comparisons between estimates prior to 2019 should be made with caution, as the impact of these changes has not been fully evaluated.