Number of people in the U.S. without health insurance 1997-2021

In the first half of 2021, approximately 31.1 million people in the United States had no health insurance. The share of Americans without health insurance was steadily decreasing until 2015, but has been increasing since 2017. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 caused this change, because it repealed the individual mandate, which penalized individuals for failing to maintain health coverage.

Positive impact of Affordable Care Act

In the U.S. there are public and private forms of health insurance, as well as social welfare programs such as Medicaid and programs just for veterans such as CHAMPVA. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in 2010, which dramatically reduced the share of uninsured Americans, though there’s still room for improvement. In spite of its success in providing more Americans with health insurance, ACA has had an almost equal number of proponents and opponents since its introduction, though the share of Americans in favor of it has risen since mid-2017 to the majority.

Persistent disparity among ethnic groups

The share of uninsured people is higher in certain demographic groups. For instance, Hispanics continue to be the ethnic group with the highest rate of uninsured people, even after ACA. Meanwhile the share of uninsured White and Asian people is lower than the national average.