Oct. 24, 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Kansas has done a good job the past couple of years covering more children with health insurance.
In 2009, 8.2 per cent of children in Kansas were uninsured, according to a new report from the Georgetown Center on Children and Families. Two years later, the figure was down to 6.4 percent.
That 1.8 percentage point change was the seventh best improvement among states over the period, according to the report. Oregon and Texas improved the most, at 3.1 percentage points each. Missouri — which improved coverage by .2 percentage points — was among the bottom 10 states in reducing the percentage of its uninsured children.
Much of Kansas’ increase in coverage for children is attributable to the state’s Healthwave program — which insures children whose families earn a little too much to qualify for Medicaid — said Suzanne Wikle, director of policy and research for the non-profit advocacy group, Kansas Action for Children.
“In 2010, the eligibility level for our Healthwave program was increased to account for the fastest-growing group of uninsured children, who were just above the eligibility line at that point. So we made the program available to many more uninsured children in the state. That’s had a very big impact,” Wikle said.
Wikle said the state has also done a better job of marketing the Healthwave program. She’s worried, though, that when Healthwave is incorporated into KanCare the name change may confuse some families and cause them to miss out on coverage they’re eligible for.
KanCare is Gov. Sam Brownback’s plan to move most of the state’s 380,000 Medicaid enrollees into managed care plans operated by three insurance companies.
Currently, large managed care companies only provide services to children and pregnant women from low-income families through HealthWave.
The authors of the Georgetown report say full implementation of the Affordable Care Act is the next opportunity to make substantial progress on insuring children.
→ Read the full report here (PDF).