HealthDay News — The proportion of young adults aged 18 to 25 years with private health insurance has increased and the percentage with gaps in insurance coverage has decreased, since the Affordable Care Act extended dependent health coverage to include this age group, according to the CDC.
Whitney K. Kirzinger, MPH, and colleagues from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Md., analyzed data from the 2008 to 2012 National Health Interview Survey to determine the previous insurance status and sources of coverage among privately insured young adults aged 19 to 25 years old.
Private health insurance coverage increased from 52% in the last half of 2010 to 57.9% in the last half of 2012. During the same period, the percentage with coverage in their own name decreased from 40.8% to 27.2%, and the percentage with employer-sponsored health insurance increased from 85.6% to 92.5%.
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The proportion of young adults who experienced a gap in coverage in the previous 12 months also fell, from 10.5% in the last half of 2008 to 7.8% through the last half of 2012, with the exception of an increase in the first half of 2011.
“Since September 2010, the percentage of young adults who obtained coverage through some other family member increased, and the percentage of young adults with coverage sponsored through the employer of the policyholder (the parent or the young adult) increased,” Kirzinger and colleagues conclude.
