The Centers for Disease Control pegs the number of people who lost health insurance coverage in 2018 at 1.1 million, backing up other surveys showing the damage the Trump administration's sabotage of the Affordable Care Act has wrought.
It's the second consecutive year the number of uninsured has risen, following several years of increasing insured rates under President Obama. The number of uninsured, according to the CDC's National Health Interview Survey, is 30.4 million, up from 29.3 million last year. "I don't think it's too shocking with efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," said health policy expert Daniel Derksen at the University of Arizona. The end of the individual mandate in that law meant people no longer are penalized for not having coverage.
In addition to more low-income people leaving Medicaid either because they found work and no longer qualified, or, in the case of Arkansas, have been kicked off because they failed to report that they'd found work, Trump's sabotage has also played out in making healthcare costs higher for many consumers, with the number of people in high-deductible plans reaching an all-time high in the CDC survey. Nearly 46% of people with private health insurance have high-deductible plans, meaning increased out-of-pocket spending. Just 25% of privately insured people were in high-deductible plans in 2010.
The CDC survey backs up a Congressional Budget Office analysis from last month that found more than 1 million people had lost insurance since Trump took office. A survey Gallup has been conducting for the past 10 years also found that the uninsured rate is going up, the highest in 2018 that it's been in four years.