Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), millions of Californians have gained health coverage. These gains have come either through the expansion of Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California) to low-income adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty guideline (FPG), or through Covered California, the state's ACA health insurance marketplace, where people earning up to 400% FPG can purchase subsidized insurance coverage. The major coverage expansions of the ACA were implemented starting in 2014, and by 2016 the uninsured rate among nonelderly Californians had fallen from 15.5% to a historic low of 8.5%. This brief examines health care coverage rates and sources of coverage among nonelderly (under age 65) Californians based on the 2017 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). The authors focus on nonelderly Californians because those over 65 are nearly universally covered by Medicare. For ease of presentation, the nonelderly uninsured rate is referred to in the text as the "uninsured rate."
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