Did You Know?

Health Care Coverage and Children

Uninsured Children

Nearly one in seven children in the United States lacked health insurance in 1995. (Children’s Defense Fund)

Nationally, 86% of uninsured children have parents who work and pay taxes. (Employee Benefits Research Institute)

The proportion of children in the USA with coverage through their parents’ benefit plans at work has declined from 65% in the mid-80s to 53% in 1995, which translates to about 700,000 children a year losing employer-based health insurance. If the trend continues, a projected 12.6 million children will be uninsured by 2000. (Employee Benefits Research Institute)

Of the 10 million uninsured children (a quarter of the nation’s 40 million people without coverage): 34% are teen-agers; 500,000 are younger than 1; 86% live in families with at least one working parent; 65% live in families with annual incomes of $25,000 or less; and 63% live in two-parent families; 37% live with one parent. (Employee Benefits Research Institute)

Medicaid now covers one in four children age 18 and under. That’s 17 million children, up from around 11 million in 1985. An estimated 3 million children qualify, but do not receive coverage, usually because parents are unaware their children are eligible. (Employee Benefits Research Institute)

Almost half of California’s urban Latino children who are eligible for federally funded health coverage are not receiving it because of their parents’ immigrant status.(Journal of the American Medical Association)