The percentage of Texas’ youngest children without health insurance has increased since 2016, according to a report released Wednesday.
In 2018, 8.3% of Texas children under age 6 — a total of 198,014 — were uninsured. The rate has grown by 1 percentage point, or about 23,000 children, since 2016, according to a report by Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. The data mirrors growth seen in the uninsured rates among all Texans.
Texas has the second highest rate of uninsured young children, behind Alaska.
Nationally, more than 1 million children under the age of 6, or 4.3 percent, lack health insurance. About 19% of the country’s uninsured young children are in Texas, even though Texas’ share of the nation’s population of young children is about half that percentage.
“We have a particularly extreme problem in Texas and the time seems ripe to pay attention to it,” said Anne Dunkelberg with the Austin-based liberal policy think tank Center for Public Policy Priorities.
Source: Uninsured rate for Texas’ youngest children jumps, report says / Record Star