U.S. Uninsured Rate Drops by 26% Since 2019

The overall number of Americans without health insurance dropped by 8.2 million from 2019 to 2023. These findings are included in a new report by the 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, 2023.” It shows that among working-age Americans (those ages 18–64), 10.9% did not have health insurance in 2023, a decrease from 14.7% in 2019.

Highlights from the report include:

• 7.6% or 25.0 million Americans of all ages did not have health insurance in 2023 compared to 10.3% or 33.2 million in 2019.
• In 2023, 3.9% or 2.8 million children did not have health insurance compared with 5.1% or 3.7 million in 2019.
• Almost two-thirds (64.4%) of people younger than 65 were covered by private health insurance and more than a quarter (28.6%) were covered by public health insurance in 2023.
• Among White, non-Hispanic adults ages 18–64, the percentage who were uninsured decreased by 35% from 10.5% in 2019 to 6.8% in 2023.
• In 2023, almost 1 in 4 Hispanic adults ages 18–64 (24.8%) lacked health insurance, a greater percentage than Black, non-Hispanic adults (10.4%), White, non-Hispanic adults (6.8%) and Asian, non-Hispanic adults (4.4%).
• The percentage of Americans younger than 65 with exchange-based private health insurance increased from 3.7% in 2019 to 4.8% in 2023.

Due to changes in various methodological aspects of the NHIS, this report only presents trends starting with 2019.  Direct comparisons between estimates prior to 2019 should be made with caution.

The report is available on the NCHS web site at www.cdc.gov/nchs.