AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
![\"](\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/gr-41588-1-1.jpg\")
States that have expanded Medicaid are seeing a surge in the number of parents with health insurance, while the increases in other states, including Texas, are much smaller. Photo credit: Images Money\/Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a whole body of research that shows some really surprising outcomes when parents are themselves insured,\u201d Dunkelberg says. \u201cNot 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\u2019re sick if their parents have insurance too.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s 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,\u201d Kenney says.<\/p>\n
There have been improvements since the opening of the ACA marketplace, but around one-in-four Texans remain uninsured. That\u2019s the highest rate in the country, a ranking Texas has maintained for more than a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Differences Emerge with Optional Medicaid Expansion by John Michaelson\/TNS AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2564","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\/2564","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=2564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2566,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564\/revisions\/2566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}