LOS ANGELES — The first full year of the Affordable Care Act brought historic increases in coverage for low-wage workers and others who have long been left out of the health care system, a New York Times analysis has found. Immigrants of all backgrounds — including more than a million legal residents who are not citizens — had the sharpest rise in coverage rates.

Hispanics, a coveted group of voters this election year, accounted for nearly a third of the increase in adults with insurance. That was the single largest share of any racial or ethnic group, far greater than their 17 percent share of the population. Low-wage workers, who did not have enough clout in the labor market to demand insurance, saw sharp increases. Coverage rates jumped for cooks, dishwashers, waiters, as well as for hairdressers and cashiers. Minorities, who disproportionately worked in low-wage jobs, had large gains.

The health care law was one of the most bitterly contested pieces of legislation in the country’s history. It remains controversial because of its costs to both taxpayers and insurance customers. The high premiums and high deductibles of many plans still make coverage a crushing financial burden for some families.

And the law is not close to achieving the goal of universal coverage, in part because 19 states have declined to expand their Medicaid programs for the poor, an option the Supreme Court granted them in a landmark 2012 case. Nevertheless, the Times’s analysis shows that by the end of that first full year, 2014, so many low-income people gained coverage that it halted the decades-long expansion of the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the American health insurance system, a striking change at a time when disparities between rich and poor are growing in many areas.

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Jeffrey R. Ungvary President