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Rate of Uninsured Americans Falls, Study Credits Obamacare

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Mar 10, 2014 10:05 AM EDT

With Obamacare enforced in the United States, health care has become relatively more accessible for individuals. According to a new major survey that has been monitoring the progress of the new health care law, the rate of uninsured people has fallen. With three weeks left to sign up, the nation's overall uninsured rate could continue to fall.

The survey, conducted by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, has reported that with the latest health care law, roughly three to four million additional people are getting coverage. So far, in 2014, the rate of American adults who are uninsured is 15.9 percent. Within the past three months, that rate was sitting at 17.1 percent. The researchers found that the greatest decline in the uninsured rate was in low-income households that made less than $36,000 a year with a drop of 2.8 percentage points.

When the researchers examined every major demographic group, they found that all groups made significant progress with the exception of the Hispanics. The Hispanic group experienced a decline of just eight-tenths of a percentage point during this calendar quarter. For blacks, the uninsured rate fell by 2.6 percentage points and for whites, the rate fell by one percentage point.

The survey found that Latinos had the highest uninsured rate in comparison to any other racial or ethnic group most likely due to the difficulty of using the website CuidadodeSalud.gov, The Spanish website initially had technical difficulties, which delayed the website's launch date. The researchers also found that the website incorporated both Spanish and English languages, which could be confusing for Spanish-only speaking individuals.

The data collected in the study came from 28,396 interviews of adults aged 18 and older. The participants were from all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. The telephone interviews were conducted from Jan 2 through to Feb 28. The Gallup poll interviews around 500 people a day for 350 days out of a year.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index was released Monday and can be accessed here.

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