Survey: Uninsured health insurance rate remains at record low in U.S.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- The uninsured rate for health insurance maintained a record-low 10.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to data from Gallup and Healthways.

The figure is the same as the third quarter of last year, which was the lowest since Gallup and Healthways began tracking insurance coverage in 2008.

The highest rate was 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013, before the health insurance exchanges opened Oct. 1 of that year. The exchanges are part of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which requires Americans to carry health insurance or incur a fine.

The government reported that ACA enrollment surged via the exchanges after Donald Trump -- a vocal critic of the healthcare law -- won the presidential election on Nov. 8. According to federal officials, 6.4 million people had already purchased healthcare on the exchanges in the open-enrollment period through mid-December, which is an increase of 400,000 over the same period in 2015.

Researchers said this suggests the uninsured rate could fall further in the first quarter of this year.

Republicans, who control the House and Senate, have vowed to dismantle much of Obamacare this year. On Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said there would a transition period before implementing new healthcare legislation.

Gallup and Healthways conducted 42,546 interviews with U.S. adults aged 18 and older from Nov. 1 to Dec. 30 as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. A total of 500 are randomly selected daily.

The largest declines, about 10 percentage points, are in the uninsured rate among low-income (now at 20.8 percent) and Hispanic (27.4 percent) adults. Conversely, the lowest uninsured rates are those older than age 65 (2.3 percent), high-income adults (2.7 percent) and white Americans (6.9 percent).

More adults are paying for their own plan. Among the non-Medicare population, it rose 3.7 percentage points to 21.3 percent in the fourth quarter from 2013.

The percentage of Americans aged 18 to 64 receiving their health coverage through an employer has remained largely stable at 44.3 percent since the last quarter of 2013. Ohter methods of coverage for those 18 to 64 include Medicaid (8.8 percent), Medicare (7.6 percent), military/veterans (4.7 percent) and union (2.7 percent).