New figures released today by the U.S. Census Bureau show that in 2010, young adults aged 18 to 24 were the only group whose rate of health insurance coverage actually increased. Compared to 2009, a full 2 percentage points more people in this age bracket had health insurance, representing about 500,000 individuals.

The big difference between 2009 and 2010, of course, was the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which allows young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until their 26th birthday. The increased coverage, the Bureau said, “almost certainly reflects the effects of the extension of dependent coverage.”

It was a small bright spot in an otherwise discouraging picture. The proportion of the population without health insurance was 16.3 percent in 2010, statistically unchanged from the uninsured rate of 16.1 percent in 2009.

Employer-based insurance, long the mainstay of coverage for non-elderly Americans, continued its steady erosion. In 2010, 55.3 percent of the population got health insurance through employers, down from 56.1 percent in 2009 and 64.1 percent in 1999.

Another government-sponsored health plan, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), also proved a stabilizing force. In a year when the overall poverty rate increased and household income decreased, the percentage of uninsured children under 18 held steady at 9.8 percent.

Sources
U.S. Census Bureau, Overview of the Uninsured in the United States