Roughly 1 million young adults gained health insurance because of the healthcare reform law, the White House said Wednesday.



The law allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance plans through age 26. Health and Human Services officials said that’s the explanation for a significant rise in the number of young adults with insurance.



Coverage among young adults increased roughly 3 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to a report HHS released Wednesday. That tracks with new findings from Gallup. The polling organization found that roughly 24 percent of young adults are uninsured — the lowest rate since 2008, when Gallup began tracking health coverage.



Although recent Census data showed that Medicaid coverage for young adults has also increased, HHS said that bump was not statistically significant and that the increase is almost entirely in private coverage.

