Georgetown University Report Finds Number of Uninsured Children Now at Highest Levels –
Since Major Provisions of Affordable Care Act Took Effect
Key Findings:
- The number of uninsured children in the United States increased by more than 400,000 between 2016 and 2018 bringing the total to over 4 million uninsured children in the nation.
- These coverage losses are widespread with 15 states showing statistically significant increases in the number and/or rate of uninsured children (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia), and only one state (North Dakota) moving in the right direction.
- Loss of coverage is most pronounced for white children and Latino children (some of which may fall into both categories), young children under age 6, and children in low- and moderate- income families who earn between 138 percent and 250 percent of poverty.
- States not expanding Medicaid to parents and other adults under the Affordable Care Act have seen increases in their rate of uninsured children three times as large as states that have expanded Medicaid.
Causes of Decreased Coverage
The Georgetown Health Policy Institute (full report) details in its report the following factors have contributed to the erosion in children’s health coverage: efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid; an intentional delay by the Republican administration to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program (2017); the elimination of the individual mandate penalty (2019); cuts to enrollment outreach and advertising pre-ACA enrollment; inadequate oversight by the federal government of state Medicaid programs which create more red tape barriers; and an administration enacted, climate of fear of deportation and intentional confusion for immigrant families discouraging them from enrolling eligible children in Medicaid or CHIP (2016).
The Republican party has made it a goal to repeal the ACA as passed by Barack Obama and Democrats early on in its administration. Under President Trump, the Republicans have done everything possible to deny healthcare coverage to legal immigrants and their families, the poor, and those who are marginalized. The full report includes a series of charts which pictorially represents the issues briefly cited here. It also includes a state by state analysis of the uninsured. It should come as no surprise, the South has 52% of the total uninsured children with Texas have 21.5% of the total uninsured children in the nation.
The Number of Uninsured Children Is On the Rise,” October 2019, Georgetown Health Policy Institute, Joan Alker and Lauren Roygardner
Families looking for information on how to enroll their children in Medicaid or CHIP should call 877-KIDS-NOW or visit insurekidsnow.gov
Run75441 (Bill H)
Don’t look now, but the judges are coming to increase the uninsured, aided by trump’s personal attorney now serving as the Attorney General of the US.
“A Federal Court May Soon Do What Congress Could Not: Obliterate Obamacare
Thousands organized to save the Affordable Care Act in 2017. Now the entire law may be struck down when no one’s looking.
By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern
Oct 31, 20195:45 AM
The Trump administration is trying to take away health care from millions of Americans. Yet nobody is campaigning on, fundraising off, or publicizing this imminent threat. That’s astounding. But any day now, aided and abetted by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Trump administration is poised to stick a knife in the heart of what remains of the Affordable Care Act. At minimum, this president will be throwing 20 million people who obtained insurance under the ACA off of their plans. That should be something we are reminded of daily.
The notoriously conservative appellate court will decide a challenge to a state-led effort to end the ACA once and for all, on the dubious legal theory that, when Congress chose not to kill Obamacare in 2017, it actually intended to kill the law. If the court embraces this theory, it could send the American health care system into a tailspin and affect nearly all Americans’ coverage to varying degrees. A three-judge panel of that court heard arguments in July. A decision is imminent. ….
But the most astonishing part of this sad episode isn’t the fact that irresponsible partisans in the judicial branch are acting lawlessly, aided and abetted by the Department of Justice. It’s that the same Americans who stopped Congress from eviscerating the ACA in 2017 by maniacally organizing, petitioning, and protesting have apparently not quite recognized that the courts are about to achieve the same outcome without their signoff. This is because the judicial branch works quietly, and without fanfare, and also because Americans don’t make phone calls to federal jurists to lobby for outcomes in lawsuits. Even if they did, such efforts do not often change judicial minds. This is, by design, how anti-majoritarian courts operate. It’s also how federal courts have managed to do, in the gun context, the abortion context, and the religious liberty context, what legislatures cannot do openly: thwart the will of the people. By design that is what courts should be doing, if the will of the people butts up against the Constitution.
Hypertechnical severability arguments cloaked in half-truths and ahistorical revisions of actual events, however, are not fundamental constitutional principles. And killing the ACA in the 5th Circuit after multiple failed efforts to kill it in Congress is not lofty judicial intercession. It is an effort to undo a law that has been wildly successful and, yes, lifesaving for millions, in a backroom, on a pretext, in defiance of both the law and the will of Congress. If the 5th Circuit guts the ACA, the Supreme Court is going to have to add it to the mounting pile of explosive election year cases it’s already got on its plate. And Americans are going to have to relearn a lesson we keep forgetting, which is that the courts are the most important legacy of any presidential election contest and that we always remember that fact, after the fact, when it is far too late. ”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/obamacare-fifth-circuit-texas.html