Weekly Checkup

Young Adult Exchange Enrollees Disproportionately Low

The Administration has made young adults a focus of the Affordable Care Act’s enrollment efforts, setting a goal of enrolling 2.7 million members between the ages of 18 and 35 years old—38 percent of the total enrollment target of 7 million. This ratio roughly mirrors the nation’s uninsured population of which about 40 percent are in that target age group. With this in mind, the American Action Forum examined how young adult exchange enrollment is stacking up against the states’ uninsured demographics in the state-run exchanges. The chart below compares the percent of exchange enrollees in each state that are young adults to the proportion of each state’s young-adult uninsured population.1  Thus far, the 6 states for which there is data on the age of exchange enrollees are falling short of that target.

Data displayed in the chart is for adults aged 18 to 34 years old. The uninsured demographics come from the American Community Survey and the exchange enrollment data is available through each state’s exchange website.

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