We've been beating the drum here pretty loudly on the issue of children's health care--and today will be no different. The
Campaign for Children's Health Care (of which we're a partner) released today a new report that paints a grim picture of the state of children's health insurance in America. You can
check out the report here.
Bottom line: there are too many uninsured kids in America. By our numbers, there are currently more than 9 million uninsured kids in this country; in other words, one out of every nine kids has no health insurance. Moreover, for the first time since 1998, the number of uninsured kids has gone up, from 10.8% to 11.2%.
If you just can't wait to take action, click here. Otherwise, make the jump.
More sad facts:
* The majority of uninsured children--88.3%--come from families where at least one parent works.
* The five states with the largest number of uninsured children are California (1,368,999), Texas (1,366,638), Florida (718,603), New York (441,434), and Illinois (376,332).
* The five states with the highest rates of uninsured children are Texas (20.4%), Florida (17.0%), New Mexico (16.7%), Nevada (16.4%), and Montana (16.2%)
* Hispanic and black, non-Hispanic children are disproportionately represented among the ranks of the uninsured. More than 22% of Hispanic children and about 13% of black, non-Hispanic children are uninsured, compared to 7.5% of white, non-Hispanic children.
* More than half of all uninsured children live in two-parent
families.
* In more than half of all two-parent families with uninsured
children, both parents work.
The arrival of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997 helped cover many children who otherwise would've gone uninsured. But the inroads SCHIP has made have been offset in recent years by the decline of employer-provided health coverage. This is clearly an issue that lawmakers will have to deal with sooner or later.
If 9 million is too big a number to wrap your head around, maybe this will help: 9 million kids are enough to:
Stretch across 6,936 miles if they hold hands-- nearly three times the distance from San Francisco to Washington, DC
Fill 166,491 school buses
Form 1,017,444 little-league teams (and if they get hurt, they have no health insurance!)
These numbers speak for themselves. They're the reason why the The Campaign for Children's Health Care was formed in the first place. Wanna help us turn these numbers around? You can start here.