For a fifth consecutive year, Arizona has one of the highest rates of uninsured children in the U.S.
About 10 percent of children in Arizona were without health insurance in 2014, according to a report released Wednesday by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.
That works out to 161,854 uninsured Arizona children, the report says.
Nationally, the rate of uninsured children in 2014 reached a historic low of 6 percent, the report says.
Last year marked the fifth year in a row that Arizona placed 49th for its rate of uninsured children in the Georgetown report.
The only states to rank lower than Arizona in the most recent report were Alaska and Texas.
What appears to be a major contributing factor to higher rates of uninsured children in Arizona is the state’s decision to freeze and then close its KidsCare program.
The program provided health insurance to children whose families earned too much for them to qualify for Medicaid, yet not enough to afford regular health insurance.
KidsCare was Arizona’s version of the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. Arizona is now the only state in the U.S. without a CHIP program.
Half of the country’s 4.4 million uninsured children live in six states — Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. The report relied on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
The research shows uninsured children live disproportionately in the South, are of Hispanic descent, school age, and live in rural areas.
The U.S. rate decline from 7.1 percent in 2013 to the 6 percent level can be at least in part attributed to provisions of the Affordable Care Act that took effect in 2014 and resulted in more Americans gaining health coverage, the Georgetown report’s authors say.
While Arizona’s rate of uninsured children dropped from 11.9 percent in 2013 to 10 percent last year, it still has one of the worst rates in the nation — 49th out of 50 states and D.C.
Much of the decline in uninsured children nationwide occurred in states that expanded Medicaid, said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.
While Arizona expanded its Medicaid program and more of the state’s residents now have health coverage, the lack of a CHIP program is affecting health coverage among children here, Alker said.
Some Arizona children from families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid (and would have previously qualified for KidsCare) are not able to get insurance coverage on the marketplace due to something called the “family glitch,” she said.
The Affordable Care Act says that if a large employer offers health insurance that is “affordable” (9.5 percent of the employee’s household income or less), that person is not eligible for subsidized insurance through the exchanges.
Where the family glitch occurs, Georgetown researchers say, is that employers don’t have to offer coverage for dependents, but the dependents are also not eligible for federal subsidies on the exchange.
The Georgetown center expects to release follow-up reports on uninsured Hispanic children and also on uninsured children in Arizona in early December, officials said.
