About 8% of the country lacked health insurance in 2025, new data shows.
That could rise next year
[May 28, 2026]
By MIKE STOBBE and ALI SWENSON
NEW YORK (AP) — The proportion of Americans without health insurance
held steady at around 8% of the population in 2025, according to new
findings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The national survey results, released Thursday, show the all-ages
uninsured rate has stayed significantly down from where it was several
years ago, but the ranks of the uninsured could soon expand as the Trump
administration’s sweeping changes to the health landscape begin to take
hold.
Massive changes to Medicaid, the government’s safety-net health program
for low-income Americans, passed into law last year could result in 10
million more uninsured individuals over a decade, according to
Congressional Budget Office estimates.
And the expiration this year of certain Affordable Care Act subsidies —
which had offset premium costs — 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.
The government has multiple programs for tracking Americans’ insurance
status, which can give different numbers depending on factors like
timing and question wording. Many researchers consider the U.S. Census
Bureau to be “the official scorekeeper,” said David Howard, an Emory
University health policy and management professor.
But the CDC survey results tracks closely with that, and they offer the
first complete data for all of 2025 — the first year of President Donald
Trump’s second term in office.
The Trump administration has sought to expand access to low-premium
catastrophic health insurance plans and lower drug prices for Americans
who don’t have health insurance. It has also suggested that projected
insurance enrollment declines indicate a drop-off of fraudulent and
ineligible enrollees, rather than eligible Americans.
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Pages from the U.S. Affordable Care Act health insurance website,
healthcare.gov, are displayed on a computer screen in New York, Aug.
19, 2025. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)
 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 growth of the overall U.S. population helps explain
that.
The survey results also suggest a possible increased insured rate
among Hispanic Americans. But that may in part reflect the effects
of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, if uninsured
members of that group left the country, Howard said.
Most Americans 65 and older have health insurance through the
federal Medicare program. It's different for younger Americans, many
of whom are covered through a patchwork of public and private
insurance programs.
The percentage of Americans under 65 who were uninsured rose in the
1980s, 1990s and early 2000s — from 12% in 1980 to more than 18% 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%, before rising to 11 to 12% during
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. The rate hit an
all-time low in 2023, falling below 9%.
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