The number and rate of uninsured children in the U.S. rose in 2017, according to a new report based on government data, the first such increase in eight years.
There were 3.9 million uninsured children nationwide in 2017, 276,000 more than the year before, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families’ eighth annual report on uninsured children released Wednesday.
The share of children that are uninsured rose from 4.7 percent in 2016 to 5 percent in 2017, according to the report’s analysis of census data.
The center attributed the increase partly to a lack of awareness about government programs for insuring children and congressional delays in funding the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.
“Even more troubling, the number of uninsured children increased during a time of economic strength, in fact, at a time when one would expect the uninsured rate to go down, as more children were covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2017,” wrote Joan Alker, the center’s executive director, in a blog post on the report.
Akler wrote that coverage for children under Medicaid and CHIP and in the individual market that includes Obamacare’s insurance exchanges decreased in 2017.
“That caused the number of uninsured children to go up, despite the strong economy,” she said.
Akler added that she has written the report for eight years and found that no state except for the District of Columbia saw any “measurable progress in reducing the number of uninsured children in 2017.”
The report attributed the lack of progress to several factors, chief among them a drumbeat of news regarding Obamacare repeal. Akler wrote that a majority of uninsured kids are eligible for CHIP or Medicaid but aren’t enrolled.
“The name of the game here is to make sure that families are aware that their child has a path to coverage and that these kids get enrolled and stay enrolled,” Akler said.
Akler also blamed the Trump administration’s “hostile” actions towards immigrant families for lowering coverage. She wrote that one quarter of children living in the U.S. come from immigrant parents and that these “mixed status” families have a heightened fear of interacting with the government, which could deter them from getting insurance through Medicaid or CHIP.
