According to new survey findings published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 8 percent, or 27.1 million, of Americans did not have health insurance during the first months of 2024. The CDC said these numbers broke a streak of record-low numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

These figures estimate insurance coverage based on the results of the agency’s quarterly surveys.

The C.D.C. says the number of Americans without health insurance also increased significantly during the first quarter of this year, up 3.4 million from the same period last year, when about 7.7 percent of citizens were without insurance.

The CDC says that even though the increase so far has not been significant, future rounds will provide a clearer picture of true uninsured rates. The latest figures come after a series of low insurance rates over the past few years that Biden administration officials promoted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the proportion of people without insurance in 2023 fell below 8 percent for four consecutive quarters.

Why are insurance rates falling?

According to experts and health officials, the low insurance rates are largely attributed to several changes brought about in health insurance during the pandemic. Prior to 2020, the U.S. uninsured rate was over 10 percent.

There have been more than 1.2 million deaths in the United States since the pandemic began in December 2019 and the number of confirmed and probable positive cases has exceeded 104 million.

According to experts, one of the biggest factors in the insurance pause during COVID-19 is that states are re-verifying the eligibility of residents covered by Medicaid, suspending many features that previously made enrollees eligible for state health insurance rolls. Officials say the entire process of restarting eligibility checks after the pandemic — a huge bureaucratic undertaking called Medicaid unwinding — is scheduled to be finished in all states by the end of this month.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said in June that rates of Americans covered by health insurance would likely return to pre-pandemic levels by 2026, after a decline in Medicaid enrollment and the expiration of temporary subsidies.

According to recent data released by the Congressional Budget Office, it is estimated that the uninsured rate in the US will fall significantly in the coming years. In addition to the expiration of pandemic-era insurance policies, increased immigration is another factor that could increase uninsured rates.

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