Insured Rate for Parents: Texas Lingers as Other States Surge

Differences Emerge with Optional Medicaid Expansion

by John Michaelson/TNS

AUSTIN, Texas – When it comes to parents who have health insurance, there is a growing gap among the states with a stark difference in coverage trends between those that have expanded Medicaid and those that have not.

A new report finds states with expanded Medicaid have seen the insured rate for parents jump by 33 percent. In states with no expansion, there has been no significant change. That does not bode well for their children, says Anne Dunkelberg associate director with the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

“There’s a whole body of research that shows some really surprising outcomes when parents are themselves insured,” Dunkelberg says. “Not only are they more likely to get their kids signed up for insurance, but the kids are more likely to get checkups and immunizations. And kids are actually more likely to get care when they’re sick if their parents have insurance too.”

Texas is one of about two-dozen states that have thus far declined the federal funding to provide health insurance to more low-income residents.

Despite the importance of health insurance to families, whether states have expanded Medicaid or not is a decision that has fallen largely along party lines, says Genevieve Kenney, co-director in the Health Policy Center with the Urban Institute.

“There’s been so much focus on, and so much rhetoric around, the politics of the Affordable Care Act. Maybe not quite as much focus on the human dimension, and what is at stake for families,” Kenney says.

There have been improvements since the opening of the ACA marketplace, but around one-in-four Texans remain uninsured. That’s the highest rate in the country, a ranking Texas has maintained for more than a decade.