Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

October 30, 2012

Between 2009 and 2011, the number of Georgia children not covered by any kind of health insurance fell by almost 45,000. When thousands of the state’s most vulnerable citizens have access to health care they didn’t have before, that’s good news by any measure.

By another measure of child welfare, however, Georgia isn’t faring so well. A study just released by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families ranks the state a dismal 48th in rates of child health insurance.

We’re getting better, but the rest of the country is getting better faster.

Nationwide, the percentage of children not covered by any health plan is down to 7.5 percent, a figure Georgetown researcher Joan Alker called “a historic low.” Georgia, Alker told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is lagging substantially behind, with a child uninsurance rate of 9.5 percent.

And the really unfortunate part, she added, is that many of those children with no coverage are eligible for some form of health care assistance. Medicaid provides health coverage for poor families; PeachCare covers children from working families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too low to afford private health insurance. Families whose children are covered by PeachCare might pay a small means-based premium.

One thing the state needs to do, Alker said, is “remove red tape barriers and reach out to more eligible but uninsured children right now.” As the AJC noted, Georgia last year received a $2.5 million federal grant for technology to help track and enroll uninsured children in health plans for which they are eligible.

Georgia is a chronically poor state still in the throes of a post-recession budget crunch. But that very economic squeeze means even more families have an even harder time affording health care. Too many children eligible for help still aren’t getting it.