CDC: R.I. uninsured rate falls to 4.5%

RHODE ISLAND'S uninsured rate fell to 4.5 percent in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. / COURTESY CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
RHODE ISLAND'S uninsured rate fell to 4.5 percent in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. / COURTESY CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s health care uninsured rate fell to 4.5 percent in 2015 from 6.4 percent in 2014, according to the National Health Interview Survey released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC conducted its survey throughout 2015, and for Rhode Island, results had a standard error of 0.96.

The uninsured rate is slightly less than the 5 percent that HealthSource RI, the state’s health-benefits exchange, reported in September. HSRI said Rhode Island’s uninsured population totals fewer than 50,000 people, representing an uninsured rate of 5 percent, according to a survey taken last summer. The survey’s margin of error was estimated at less than 1 percent.

The survey showed that the percentage of Rhode Islanders without health insurance has been reduced by more than half since 2012, when the uninsured rate was 11 percent.

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“We’re pleased with the progress that we’ve made thus far in decreasing the rate of the uninsured,” HSRI Director Zachary Sherman said Wednesday.

As of May 14, HSRI had 35,734 paid enrollments, an increase from the 34,888 paid enrollments at the end of the open enrollment period on Jan. 31. The January number included 8,029 new enrollments, according to Sherman.

Nationwide, the uninsured rate fell to 9.1 percent last year, making it the first year in history that fewer than 1 in 10 Americans lacked health insurance, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said.

The CDC said that in 2015, 28.6 million people of all ages (9.1 percent) were uninsured at the time of interview, which is 7.4 million fewer persons than in 2014. Among children aged 0–17 years, the percentage who were uninsured decreased to 4.5 percent in 2015 from 5.5 percent in 2014.
Massachusetts last year had a 2.5 percent uninsured rate, the CDC said.

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