This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, July 16, 2014. I'm Caleb Brown.

The rate of uninsured Americans has declined since the rollout of Obamacare.

What does that say about the kinds of coverage these newly insured Americans can expect?

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He comments on the new surveys.

Since the, we'll say challenging rollout of Obamacare and its exchanges we have seen a fairly sizable reduction in the

number of people, the share of the population that is uninsured?

Well, and I think we have to admit that that's the case.

Certainly, there's still some open questions.

For example, we've seen a decline recently

in the unemployment rate.

That means some people are getting jobs that were previously

uninsured and because we link health insurance to employment in this country if we get more people

with jobs, where you expect to see a decline in the uninsurance rate.

But I think it's fair to say that the

Affordable Care Act has had something to do with that. That means something of a me

a couple for people like me who thought that the rollout was so messed up that

they wouldn't get the numbers.

On the other hand, I think we'd need to be careful before we get too excited about what

we're achieving.

I mean, basically this shows that if you give away something for free and close to 90% of the people signing up are either subsidized

or on Medicaid if you give away something for free some people will take it.

Now a large share of those people who are newly insured they've paid premiums.

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