More than 1 million Americans have lost health insurance coverage since 2016, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The analysis, which was released Thursday, estimated that the number of Americans without insurance has risen from 27.5 million in 2016 to 28.9 million in 2018.
The report, which was released Thursday, follows other surveys and studies that have also found the number of uninsured people has been rising since President TrumpDonald John TrumpGrassroots America shows the people support Donald Trump Trump speaks to rebel Libyan general attacking Tripoli Dem lawmaker: Mueller report shows ‘substantial body of evidence’ on obstruction MORE took office, including a Gallup poll from January, which found the percentage of Americans without health insurance reached its highest point since 2014.
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One of the main areas of decline the CBO found was among Americans who purchase coverage on the individual market outside of the federal and state-run ObamaCare exchanges.
In 2016, 7.4 million people purchased coverage outside the exchanges. In 2018, that number dropped to 4.9 million.
Additionally, the number of people who bought unsubsidized insurance through the exchanges has declined slightly, from 1.6 million people in 2016 to an estimated 1.3 million in 2018.
In both cases, experts attributed the decline to rising premiums. At the same time, the number of people employer-sponsored coverage has increased.
The CBO noted that measuring the uninsured rate is challenging. The agency mostly uses data from household and employer surveys, and can only use administrative data about government programs when it’s available. CBO also uses survey data to estimate the number of people without coverage, because no administrative data on the uninsured is available.