{"id":11195,"date":"2019-12-27T20:22:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T20:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11195"},"modified":"2019-12-27T20:22:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T20:22:40","slug":"texas-youngest-children-losing-health-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11195","title":{"rendered":"Texas\u2019 Youngest Children Losing Health Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Young children are more likely to be uninsured in states that, like Texas, have not expanded Medicaid to parents and other adults under the Affordable Care Act. Photo: JCarter\/Pexels<\/p><\/div>\n

by Eric Galatas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Children up to age 6 in Texas and across the nation continue to lose health coverage, according to\u00a0a new Georgetown University report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among 14 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured kids. Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of the\u00a0Center for Public Policy Priorities<\/a>, said the report should be a wake-up call for lawmakers, because too many children are missing out on care at a critical time in their development.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids are supposed to have 15 doctor visits between birth and age 6,\u201d she said, \u201cand so the kids who don\u2019t have insurance during that age, we\u2019re really missing an opportunity to detect problems early and prevent them from becoming lifetime issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a decade of progress improving access to care, Dunkelberg said Texas is headed in the wrong direction. For two years in a row, both the percentage and number of children without health coverage have gone up. Between 2016 and 2018, more than 23,000 kids up to age 6 lost coverage, a 13% increase. Last year, more than 870,000 Texans younger than 18 were uninsured.<\/p>\n

Dunkelberg said most kids without insurance are eligible under Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), but many are not enrolled. She said the most efficient way to get more Texas kids covered would be to expand Medicaid so that more parents could afford health insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen their parents are uninsured, they\u2019re much more likely to be uninsured, too,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of research that shows when parents get insured, their kids are more likely to have coverage, they\u2019re more likely to get checkups, and they\u2019re even more likely to get care when they\u2019re sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between 2016 and 2018, the uninsured rate for children younger than age 6 grew nearly three times as fast in states that have not expanded Medicaid as in expansion states.\u00a0A Georgetown report from this fall<\/a>\u00a0cited efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid, budget cuts to enrollment outreach and advertising, additional red tape and delays in funding CHIP as primary causes of lost coverage for kids.<\/p>\n

The new Georgetown report is available online\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and the October report is\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eric Galatas AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0Children up to age 6 in Texas and across the nation continue to lose health coverage, according to\u00a0a new Georgetown University report. Among 14 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured kids. Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of the\u00a0Center for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11197,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11195\/revisions\/11197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}