HHS: 3.1M Young Adults Covered Under PPACA

Coverage among young women also increased from 71.2% to 77.5%

The HHS release comes a few days after at least two major health insurance companies, UnitedHealth Group and Humana, pledged that even if the ACA is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, they will continue to cover young adults ages 19 to 26 under their parents' health plans.

Sebelius mentioned that the ACA's provisions affecting young adults also takes some of the load off of other health plan policy holders, who previously bore the cost of caring for this segment of the uninsured population.

Asked about what the Obama administration is planning as a contingency plan in case the ACA is overturned, Kronick replied, "We're not going to go into what we may or may not do after a decision. We do believe the ACA is constitutional and expect the Supreme Court to render its decision affirming that, and what we're focusing on today is educating the American people about what the healthcare law has already accomplished, and what it will continue to do between now and 2014."

Asked for an estimate on how much health insurance companies have paid out in medical expenses for this population since the provision took effect, Kronick acknowledged that insurance companies have indicated the costs have not been high because most young people are healthy.

"What we do know is that because the 19-25 year olds are healthier than average, the per person cost of insurance almost certainly went down as the risk pool has improved. And that same dynamic is expected in 2014."

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