Nearly 17 million people got health coverage through Obamacare since major provisions of the law took effect, according to a new study released Wednesday from the RAND Corporation.
The think tank found that from September 2013, the year of the first open enrollment, to February 2015 nearly 23 million people gained coverage and nearly 6 million people lost coverage.
The study published in the journal Health Affairs also delves into how many Americans got their plans canceled, a contentious point in debate over the law.
RAND concluded only 600,000 starting out with nongroup coverage became uninsured.
Of the 155.8 million people with insurance in September 2013, 80 percent experienced no change in the source of their insurance during the study period, RAND added.
“We found that the vast majority of those with individual market insurance in 2013 remained insured in 2015, which suggests that even among those who had their individual market policies canceled, most found coverage through an alternative source,” RAND said.
Among those newly gaining coverage, 9.6 million people enrolled in employer plans, followed by 6.5 million in Medicaid, 4.1 million in the individual marketplaces, 1.2 million in non-marketplace individual plans and 1.5 million in other insurance sources, RAND said.
RAND tracked health insurance transitions using its Health Reform Opinion study, which followed people from 2013 to 2015.
