{"id":4423,"date":"2015-11-06T20:35:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T20:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4423"},"modified":"2015-11-06T20:35:22","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T20:35:22","slug":"while-rates-drop-texas-leads-nation-in-uninsured-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=4423","title":{"rendered":"While Rates Drop, Texas Leads Nation in Uninsured Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

AUSTIN, Texas – More children in Texas and around the nation have health coverage. That\u2019s the good news according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, but Texas also leads the nation in the number of children without insurance.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, the report found the rate of uninsured children dropped to a historic low of six percent in 2014, the year the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect.<\/p>\n

Anne Dunkelberg with the Center for Public Policy Priorities cites the expansion of Medicaid eligibility for adults under the ACA – a move Texas has yet to make – as a significant factor for the increased coverage of kids.<\/p>\n

\"One

One year after the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the uninsured rate for children is at a historic low, according to a new report. Photo: XiXinXing\/iStockphoto.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cFolks usually refer to that as the so-called \u2018welcome mat\u2019 effect,\u201d says Dunkelberg. \u201cWhen you put out the welcome mat and say, \u2018We have coverage for everybody,\u2019 then you end up getting whole families enrolled, and that gets more children covered as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report found that from 2013 to 2014, the uninsured rate for Texas children declined from 12.6 percent to 11 percent, down from an estimated 888,000 uninsured children to just under 784,000. Dunkelberg says with that many kids in Texas still without coverage, there\u2019s clearly more work to do. According to the study, nearly 4.4 million children in the U.S. still don\u2019t have health insurance.<\/p>\n

The report also found that after the rollout of the ACA, 25 states recorded declines in the number of uninsured children, and no state showed significant increases.<\/p>\n

Study co-author Joan Alker, executive director at Georgetown\u2019s Center for Children and Families, says the study confirms that years of work by policymakers and other stakeholders to reform health care in the U.S. is beginning to pay off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Affordable Care Act, which is a significant domestic policy initiative, was really building on a decade of success for kids with Medicaid and CHIP,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we did see a significant decline from 7.1 percent to six percent in the rate of uninsured kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also found that Hispanic and school-aged children were disproportionately uninsured, as well as children living in rural areas or low-income families. Alker says if more states decide to expand adult eligibility for Medicaid coverage, uninsured rates for children could drop even further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eric Galatas AUSTIN, Texas – More children in Texas and around the nation have health coverage. That\u2019s the good news according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, but Texas also leads the nation in the number of children without insurance. Nationwide, the report found the rate of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4423","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\/4423","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=4423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4426,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423\/revisions\/4426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}