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Government health care is overtaking private coverage

Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman reports details on the shift in health care coverage.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

- Welcome back. Well, we are nearing a tipping point. More and more people are receiving government-provided health care than from private insurers. Our senior columnist, Rick Newman, is here with all of the details on that. Hi, Rick.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey. Yeah, we just got news that about 10 million people joined Medicaid and a related insurance program for children during the last year. So I added up all these numbers. And when you look at more than 80 people enrolled in Medicaid, about 64 million enrolled in Medicare, the program for the elderly, then people who are covered under the ACA or Obamacare, plus people in military plans, it appears there are probably more people covered by government-sponsored health care at this point than are covered by private plans. At a minimum, there seem to be at least a similar number of people covered by government plans as covered by traditional employer-based plans.

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And this is not just a quirk of the pandemic. This is a long-term trend. We know that with gig workers and the offshoring of jobs and other things like that, a lot of Americans just have not been able to get health care they can afford through an employer. So the government has been sort of patching the system with different programs. And now it looks like if not now, soon, more people will be sponsored by a government plan than by a private insurance plan.

- All right. Definitely. Incredibly important just to see how the knock on effects are going to play out going forward. Rick Newman, thanks so much for bringing us that story. Everyone can read it on YahooFinance.com.