In a report released last Thursday, State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said that  nearly 14.5 percent of Washingtonians or some 990,000 people were uninsured at the end of 2012, the latest date that complete data was available.

And from 2010 through 2012, the number of uninsured people in Washington grew by more than 44,000.

Four out of five people with individual insurance were also determined to be ‘underinsured,’ meaning they had plans that only paid for 25 to 40 percent of their medical costs.

The Affordable Care Act fully took effect on Jan. 1 and the uninsured rate is expected to drop to 6 percent by 2016.

“For many families who have struggled to get or keep health coverage, health reform couldn’t come soon enough,” said Kreidler.“Regardless of how you feel about ‘Obamacare,’ it’s hard to argue that we’re not making progress in stopping the growth of uninsured or that the status quo was sustainable. Before health reform, we had hundreds of thousands of people living one bad diagnosis away from bankruptcy.”

For more, go to www.insurance.wa.gov.