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.