An estimated 45,000 Kentucky children were uninsured last year, a number that has increased about 29 percent since 2016, according to a new report released by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. Kentucky’s experience is part of a national trend that left an estimated 726,000 more children without health coverage nationwide since the country achieved a historic low number of uninsured children. Much of the coverage gains of the Affordable Care Act for children have now been eliminated. Coverage losses have been concentrated in the South and West and have been largest for white and Latino children.
The increase in the number and rate of uninsured children occurred prior to the pandemic and associated economic downturn and is attributable to losses of public coverage—primarily Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The situation has most likely deteriorated in 2020 for children as their parents lost their jobs and health coverage this year, but there is still no reliable data to estimate the extent of these coverage losses.
The report analyzes single-year estimates of summary data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey from 2016 through 2019.
For more information about the report, click here.
Contact: Emily Beauregard at emily@kyvoicesforhealth.org.