Thanks to government aid, uninsured children decline

WASHINGTON -- The number of American children without health insurance declined by about 6 percent last year, according to a new report by Families USA, a non-partisan organization representing health care consumers.

But that's largely because the child poverty rate increased, so more children qualified for government-sponsored insurance, the report found.

More than 11 percent of children nationwide -- about one in nine -- still lacked health insurance in 2007, according to the report, which was based on an analysis by the US Census Bureau for Families USA. About half a million kids gained health insurance between 2006 and 2007 -- about the same number as fell into poverty.

The report also found that most uninsured kids -- 88.2 percent -- come from families with at least one parent working, and more than half live in two-parent households.

The deteriorating economy, the report says, adds new urgency to the need to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a program jointly financed by the state and federal governments to provide health insurance for about seven million low-income children,

The program is up for reauthorization this spring, just when Congress is likely to begin debating proposals for large-scale health reform. President Bush vetoed legislation to expand the program last year, and some states are beginning to run out of money to pay for the program because of swelling rolls, budget shortfalls or both.

Massachusetts had the lowest rate of uninsured kids in the country -- just 4.6 percent -- between 2005 and 2007, based on a three-year merge of Census data, compared with a national median of 9.2 percent during that period. In 2006, the Bay State passed a landmark health reform law that required all adult residents to buy insurance and all employers to either offer it or pay a fine. The new law exempted children from the mandate but expanded income eligibility guidelines for SCHIP.

"Massachusetts is number one in the rate of insured kids.... so it's obviously doing something right," said David Lemmon, communications director for Families USA.

Jon Kingsdale, the executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, which is responsible for implementing the new law, noted that the percentage of all Massachusetts residents without insurance dropped by half between 2006 and 2007, which he said doubtless contributed to the lower rates of uninsurance among children.

The five states with the highest rates of uninsured children -- more than 15 percent -- are Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada.