UPDATED: GALLUP: Uninsured rate drops to 11.9% as of end of March 2015

I don't have time to do a full write-up this morning (ironically because I have to take my kid to a doctor's appointment), but here's the main takeaway:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The uninsured rate among U.S. adults declined to 11.9% for the first quarter of 2015 -- down one percentage point from the previous quarter and 5.2 points since the end of 2013, just before the Affordable Care Act went into effect. The uninsured rate is the lowest since Gallup and Healthways began tracking it in 2008.

I'll have more later this morning. This is huge, and right in line with my expectations:

Furthermore, anyone who enrolled/enrolls between around February 23rd and March 15th (varies by state) will start coverage on April 1st...and then, on May 1st, the bulk of the #ACATaxTime Special Enrollment Period enrollees will be kicking into gear. Don't forget off-exchange enrollees, ongoing Medicaid expansion, etc...I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the national uninsured rate drop to below 12% by April.

Jeff Young at Huffington Post has a good write up on the Gallup story.

UPDATE: OK, I'm back...here's the impressive-looking graph from Gallup's site itself...

To be fair, that graph is a bit misleading since it starts at 10% uninsured. Below is a more accurate version, which also clearly marks the dates that the ACA was signed into law (March 2010) as well as the launch of the actual exchanges/Medicaid expansion provision:

In addition, as I noted last month, the Gallup survey still doesn't take into account a few other factors:

• nyone who enrolled (either on or off the exchanges) between 2/23 - 3/15 didn't have their policy coverage kick in until April 1st, which isn't included in the survey. That's likely a net gain (after attrition) of around 50-60K via the exchanges, another 30-40K off-exchange, as well as any additional Medicaid enrollees and so forth. Then, on May 1st, another likely 100-200K (including #ACATaxTime enrollees) who enrolled between 3/16 - 4/15 will have their policies kick in.

• The Gallup surveys don't account for children under 18 whatsoever, who make up about 23% of the total population, or around 74 million. The national uninsured rate among kids 0-18 in 2013 (no specific date given) was around 8%, or around 5.9 million. It's safe to assume that this has gone down as well, although probably not as dramatically as for adults. A similar 33% drop would be around 1.9 million children, but even half of that would still lop a good million children off the uninsured tally...or an additional 0.3% of the total population.

In other words, it's conceivable that the actual uninsured rate as of today (mid-April) may be as low as 11.6% or even lower.

But I'm sure none of that had anything to do with Obamacare, right?