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.
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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%.