U.S. Uninsured Rate Held at 8 Percent in 2025

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The national survey results, released Thursday, show the all-ages uninsured rate has stayed down from where it was several years ago.

Massive changes to Medicaid passed into law last year could result in 10 million more uninsured individuals over a decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. The expiration this year of certain Affordable Care Act subsidies is also contributing to reduced participation in marketplace health programs.

Around 5 million fewer people are expected to enroll in those plans in 2026 compared with 2025, according to the healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

Although the share of insured and uninsured stayed roughly the same in 2025 as the year before, the number of uninsured grew by about 800,000, 300,000 of them children. The survey results also suggest a possible increased insured rate among Hispanic Americans.

Most Americans 65 and older have health insurance through the federal Medicare program. The percentage of Americans under 65 who were uninsured rose in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, from 12 percent in 1980 to more than 18 percent in 2010. It fell following passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which expanded Medicaid programs and enacted measures to make affordable health insurance available to more people.

By 2016 it dropped nearly to 10 percent, before rising to 11 percent to 12 percent during President Donald Trump’s first administration, according to historical survey data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the rate of uninsured fall again, as a result of government policies put in place to preserve coverage as people faced disruptions related to the pandemic.