(MintPress) — A new report gauging the effects of President Barack Obama’s expanding health care overhaul has found that 3.1 million more young adults were insured in 2011 compared to the year prior, due mainly to the Affordable Care Act provision. The study, conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), demonstrates the largest annual decline for any age group since the Center for Disease Control and Prevention began assessing the data.

The National Health Interview Survey, a federal organization to tally the uninsured, discovered that the uninsured rate for those between the ages of 19 and 25 fell to 27.9 percent, down from the 33.9 percent rate in 2010. Health care policy experts, such as Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute, say the decline is almost certainly due to the new health care provision that allows young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until they turn 26, an extra year from previous law.

One of the 3.1 million young adults to benefit from the change is Brianna Graham, a 25-year-old student at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan. Graham said the workload from school has hindered her ability to work a full-time position that would give her the opportunity for health care benefits. In the past, at 25, she would have been disqualified from staying on her mother’s insurance policy.

“As a full-time law school student I am limited to working 20 hours per week, but only had the chance to work one semester because the workload is so intense in school,” Graham said in an interview with MintPress. “Part-time employees do not receive healthcare benefits and being unemployed makes it impossible to buy my own insurance.”

The law also saves nearly 16 percent of those in the demographic from being dropped for having a preexisting condition, as 1 in 6 people between the ages of 18 and 24 have a condition that could lead to insurance denial, according to Families USA.

Helping the system

The benefits of a demographic with a shrinking uninsured rate are beneficial for everyone to have within the health insurance pool of a company because they are one of the lowest-risk populations that have fewer claims and fewer ailments than the older populations. Because of this, premiums are lower when more young people are insured, according to Sam Baker, who writes the “Healthwatch” blog for the Hill.

“Adding more young people to the insurance pool is popular in part because it helps lower premiums for everyone,” Baker wrote. “Young people often go without insurance because they’re healthy and don’t think they will need it.”

Despite the positive addition of more young adults to the collective health insurance pools, annual premiums continue to rise by an average of 4 percent since last year. From 2010 to 2011, premiums increased 9 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The slowing rate of premium hikes could also be attributed to the growing number of young adults allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance plans.

But because premiums have seen slowed growth, insurance companies may be less likely to show their unconditional support for the measure, which has the potential to cut into their bottom line. Insurance companies have kept a tight lip, however, until the majority of the Affordable Care Act is put in practice. Graham said she wishes the provision of staying on her parents’ health insurance policy would extend longer, covering her until she finishes her doctorate.

“It’s people just like me who are the future customers of these health insurance companies,” Graham said. “Isn’t it cheaper now to keep us healthy an extra year for us to finish our schooling so that we can obtain a good job afterwards that will afford us the ability to buy their expensive health insurance later?”

Graham worries what will happen next spring, when she turns 26 and is no longer able to stay on her mom’s current insurance plan. She notes that her school and career trajectory will leave her with no options when the time comes.

“I can no longer be on my mom’s health insurance beginning next March. At that time I will be an unpaid, full-time extern at a law firm and have no health insurance options. My only option will be to cross my fingers and hope I don’t get sick …”

Politicizing health care

It goes without saying that health care has been ripe for political debate, as the Supreme Court of the United States made a landmark ruling by upholding the Affordable Care Act. President Obama was berated by Republicans for what they view as a socialized system of medicine, but polls found they largely agreed with the tenants it offered. One of the least popular facets of the law that Republicans disagreed on, however, was the provision that allowed children to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until the age of 26, with 52 percent saying they opposed the measure.

College Republicans have also been questioned for their motives in vilifying the health care overhaul, particularly when it comes to a program that would benefit their peers. Steve Benen of Washington Monthly wrote of an instance where a College Republican leader admitted that the issue of young adults staying on their parents’ insurance was causing friction in the group.

“College Republicans are in an unenviable position on this,” Bene wrote. “A GOP activist is apparently supposed to tell a 20-year-old student, ‘You know that health insurance you currently enjoy? You should vote for Republicans who are determined to take it away from you, on purpose, as part of a pointless ideological crusade.’”

But the importance of providing health care for those who can’t afford it in its current private system was only made more evident in a May study by the Commonwealth Fund which found that citizens in the U.S. pay more in health care costs than any other industrialized nation, but were far from receiving the best care.

The Urban Institute says that rolling out provisions that extend health care benefits or make access to said benefits easier would strengthen productivity in society by creating healthier people who would otherwise not pay out of pocket for health care expenses.

“Expanding coverage would improve health, lengthen lives, reduce disability, help control communicable diseases and raise productivity,” the institute wrote in a report. “Newly insured people would get more services, above what they currently pay out of pocket or receive from medical providers in the form of uncompensated care. This can be expected to raise medical spending, but by less than the value of longevity and other benefits achieved.”