--- description: Federal survey found an 8% decline in uninsured Americans over the year to April 2014 title: Number of Uninsured Americans Drops, Says National Health Survey image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26841d2de7e4e2a6/6986a37c13c79f40af193de9/health-insurance.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Health Care](/tag/health-care/) ## Health Care Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Survey: Number of Americans Without Health Insurance Falls by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 16, 2014 2:28 PM CUT  Patient and doctor shaking hands Patient and doctor shaking handsGetty Images by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 16, 2014 2:28 PM CUT The number of uninsured Americans dropped in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, according to the first government survey conducted since the law’s major insurance expansion programs went into effect. In [the National Health Interview Survey](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201409.pdf "undefined"), a widely respected measure of the rate of insurance nationwide, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention interviewed 27,000 people in the first quarter of 2014, and found that the number of Americans without health coverage had fallen by 8% since the same period in 2013\. That was a decline of 3.8 million, resulting in a new total of 41 million uninsured. Before the health law was implemented, many predicted it would bring new health coverage to millions more than that, but the CDC survey did not capture the surge of insurance sign ups in the final days of the first ACA open enrollment period, experts said. Larry Levitt, a director at the Program for the Study of Health Reform and Private Insurance at the Kaiser Family Foundation, [told the New York _Times_,](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/us/number-of-americans-without-health-insurance-falls-survey-shows.html "undefined") “Regardless of what you think of the \[Affordable Care Act\], there should be no doubt at this point that the law is increasing the number of people insured.” He added that this survey’s findings “dramatically understate the effect” of the law. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3386349/health-insurance-survey-uninsured/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3386349/health-insurance-survey-uninsured/"},"headline":"Survey: Number of Americans Without Health Insurance Falls","datePublished":"2014-09-16T14:28:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:12:21.550Z","description":"Federal survey found an 8% decline in uninsured Americans over the year to April 2014","url":"https://time.com/3386349/health-insurance-survey-uninsured/","keywords":["Health Care","Obamacare","Insurance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26841d2de7e4e2a6/6986a37c13c79f40af193de9/health-insurance.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26841d2de7e4e2a6/6986a37c13c79f40af193de9/health-insurance.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Health Insurance Doctor Patient","caption":"Health Insurance Doctor Patient","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/health-care/","name":"Health Care"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3386349/health-insurance-survey-uninsured/","name":"Survey: Number of Americans Without Health Insurance Falls"}}]}] ```