As Say Ahhh! readers well know, Medicaid and CHIP are a primary source of coverage for children, particularly the most vulnerable children. But even people who know the importance of our public coverage programs are often surprised to learn key statistics about Medicaid and CHIP. For example, did you know that:
- 57 percent of all federal funding to the states is for Medicaid?
- 79 percent of children living in or near poverty (138% federal poverty level or $27,821 for a family of three) access health care through Medicaid?
- 45 percent of children under the age of 6 depend on Medicaid during their critical early developmental years?
As our elected officials and the new administration make decisions about the future of Medicaid, CHIP, and the ACA, it is important that they understand how critical these programs are to children’s healthy development and success in life. To that end, CCF staff teamed up with our partners at the American Academy of Pediatrics to create state and national level snapshots of children’s health coverage that are rich in context and key data points.
The snapshots are available for download here and we welcome their dissemination far and wide. In an attempt to keep the content short and user-friendly, we provide the data sources and descriptions separately here.
