Many young children are now going without health insurance

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/many-young-children-are-now-going-without-health-insurance/2020/02/28/a651bce4-533b-11ea-9e47-59804be1dcfb_story.html

By Michael Ollove
March 2, 2020 at 4:31 p.m. EST

The first years of life play an outsize role in human health. They are foundational to the development of the brain and the cardiovascular, immune and metabolic systems. Early childhood is when medical interventions to correct problems in any of those areas are most likely to succeed.

So, for many health experts, the most troubling aspect of a recent increase in the number of children without health insurance is a spike in the number of uninsured kids under 6. That figure has climbed above a million for the first time since most of the Affordable Care Act was implemented in 2014, according to a recent analysis of census data by researchers at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

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The Georgetown researchers found that the rate of children younger than 6 without health insurance climbed from 3.8 percent in 2016 to 4.3 percent in 2018. Thirteen states had statistically significant increases in either the rate or number of young kids without insurance. Eleven states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and West Virginia — had significant increases in both.

The report notes that children are more likely to be uninsured in states that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare, which would have extended eligibility to all adults earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line. Studies show that parents in Medicaid are more likely to enroll their children in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, public health plans for families with lower incomes.

Only Minnesota had a statistically significant decrease in the number of uninsured young children, the report said. Minnesota expanded Medicaid in 2014, as soon as the ACA allowed.

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