The percentage of Americans under 65 who had private health coverage fell in 2016, and the percentage of low-income children who had no health coverage at all rose sharply.
The private coverage rate for people under 65 fell to 65%, from 65.6% in 2015. The percentage had been rising every year since 2014, when the Affordable Care Act public exchange system came to life and ACA restrictions on medical underwriting took effect.
The drop in private health insurance enrollment hit children in families with income under the federal poverty level especially hard: The uninsured rate for those children climbed to 6.5%, from 4.4% the year before.
The uninsured rate for low-income children rose because the percentage who had private coverage fell to 7.4%, from 9.1%.