UCLA Report Finds Persistent Disparities in Health Coverage and Health Care Access
A new study released by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) found that after a decade of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), coverage and health care access disparities persist among Californians. In 2020, more than 2.5 million California children, adolescents, and adults (ages 0-64) did not have health insurance coverage.
The UCLA CHPR report, The State of Health Insurance in California: Findings from the 2019 and 2020 California Health Interview Surveys, assessed insurance rates after a decade of the enactment of ACA. The study found that young adults ages 19-25 still have the lowest rates of employment-based insurance (51.7 percent compared to 61-66 percent for other age groups), even after the ACA enabled them to stay on their parents’ coverage until age 26. Among women ages 19-64, only 43.1 percent of Latina women and 55.6 percent of Black women had employment-based coverage in 2020, compared to 72 percent of white women.
The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) has been querying residents about health insurance topics since 2001. The latest report from UCLA is the 10th installment of the group’s in-depth look at health insurance coverage in California.
The full report is available here.