Uninsured rate dips below 10%

The percentage of uninsured people in the U.S. dropped below 10% this year for the first time, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released Wednesday.

The national uninsured rate decreased to 9.2% in the first three months of 2015 from 11.5% a year earlier as 7 million people gained insurance, according to the survey, conducted by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

The reduction is not as big as the drop from 2013 to 2014, when 8.8 million people gained coverage. The total decrease since major parts of the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2013 is 15.8 million.

More people have gotten covered in states that expanded Medicaid under the law and in states that set up their own exchanges instead of relying on an exchange created for them by the federal government, according to the report.

Still, 28% of the nation's poor remain uninsured, and Hispanics were significantly more likely to lack insurance—28.3%, compared with 15.6% of non-Hispanic blacks, 8.7% of Asians and 7.2% of non-Hispanic whites.

The survey data is based on interviews with more than 26,000 people.

The survey also found that 36% of people younger than 65 were enrolled in a high-deductible health plan in the beginning of 2015. That was not a statistically significant change from the year before, defying a trend over the past five years toward those types of plans.

That number could be “the calm before the storm,” said Brian Marcotte, president of the National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers such as Wal-Mart, Google and Boeing.

The organization's annual survey of large employers indicates health benefit costs will continue to increase by about 5% in 2016, Marcotte said, and nearly half of its member employers will have a plan that triggers the Affordable Care Act's so-called Cadillac tax when it goes into effect in 2018.

The 40% excise tax will apply to benefit values beyond $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families.

Some companies are taking a wait-and-see approach as Congress considers repealing the tax. An unusual alliance of big businesses and unions has formed to lobby lawmakers for repeal.

If the tax is left as is, Marcotte said, companies are likely to make significant changes in 2017, such as shifting employees into high-deductible plans, to reduce the value of benefits below the threshold triggering the tax.