CQ HEALTHBEAT
November 20, 2013
By Rebecca Adams,
A majority of respondents to a new national survey incorrectly believe that the number of children who do not have health insurance has risen in the past five years. The finding, which indicates a lack of awareness about Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, suggests that enrollment in those programs could grow if more families knew about them.
The survey was conducted by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Center for Children and Families, which supports coverage for children.
The center also released a 14-page report that found that the uninsured rate for children declined 2.1 percentage points from 2008 to 2012, from 9.3 percent to 7.2 percent. Researchers examined data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reach that conclusion.
Almost 70 percent of uninsured children are eligible for but not enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP, wrote the researchers.
The poverty rate among children reached 22.6 percent in 2012, but many poor children got health coverage through the two federal safety net programs. More than 650,000 lower-income kids gained coverage from 2010 to 2012, largely because of those programs.
The 2012 coverage rate for children, 92.8 percent, is not as high as it is for seniors. About 99 percent of people who are 65 and older have health benefits through Medicare or other insurance. But children are more likely to have coverage than adults who are 18 to 64 years old. About 79.4 percent of adults in that age bracket have benefits.
The survey showed that 13 percent of respondents knew that the number of children with coverage increased in the past five years. About 55 percent thought that the number of uninsured children grew, while 30 percent thought it stayed the same.
About one-fourth of those surveyed thought that at least one-third of the children in the state they lived in were uninsured, though no state has a rate that high.
The survey suggested that the expansion of coverage could increase even more in future years. “Building awareness of the success of these programs covering children, along with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to help cover millions more uninsured Americans (including 18 million parents), should continue to drive the rate of uninsured children down in the coming months and years,” wrote researchers in an accompanying analysis.
The center said prior research found that the health care law has the potential to reduce the number of uninsured children by almost 40 percent.
“There are obvious lessons for the Affordable Care Act,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the center, in an interview. The impact of the 2010 health care law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) could take time to emerge, she said.
“The success that our country had with kids has not happened overnight,” Alker said. “The expansion of Medicaid and CHIP show the federal government can make coverage work, but we need a strong commitment and partnership between federal and state partners to make that happen.”
The report includes local and state coverage information. It shows that the coverage rates vary dramatically from region to region, with 15 states having significantly higher rates of uninsured children than the national average. A total of 31 states have significantly lower rates than the national average. Children in the South and West are more likely to be uninsured.
Minorities also are less likely to have coverage, and Latino children are disproportionately uninsured.
The survey of 1,000 adults 18 and older was conducted from Sept. 20 through Sept. 22 by PerryUndem Research and Communication.
