Despite a booming economy (until the pandemic hit the state), 7.6 percent of Florida children, or 343,000 youngsters, were uninsured in 2019, a new report released Friday by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families shows.
Approximately 55,000 Florida children under the age of 19 lost health insurance coverage between 2016 and 2019, according to the report's authors, Joan Alker and Alexandra Corcoran.
The report is based on pre-pandemic data.
Florida has the second-largest number of uninsured children in the nation, lagging only behind Texas, which has an estimated 995,000 uninsured children. Combined, Texas and Florida account for 41 percent of the nation's 4.375 million uninsured children.
Coverage losses were widespread across income, age, and race/ethnicity, but were largest among white and Hispanic children, who can be of any race. Nationally, 9.2 percent of Hispanic children were uninsured in 2019; in Florida, the rate was 9.6 percent.
The rate of uninsured children reached an historic low of 4.7 percent nationally in 2016, but increased by 726,000 over the following three years. The natonal percentage of children without health insurance in 2019 was 5.7 percent, according to the report.
Much of the gain in children's coverage — a consequence of the Affordable Care Act’s major insurance coverage expansions that were implemented in 2014 — has been eliminated since President Donald Trump took office in 2017, the authors noted.
Florida was one of 26 states to see a substantial increase in the number of children without insurance during the three-year span. Additionally, three Florida counties — Broward, Miami Dade and Palm Beach — made the list of the top 20 counties in the nation with the highest number of uninsured children in 2019.
“Having health insurance is an essential precondition for children to get the care they need to grow and thrive. Being insured leads to better health, educational, and economic outcomes — both in the short and long term. The recent losses of health coverage during the examined period are very troubling as they reverse years of progress in reducing the number of uninsured children," the authors wrote. "And the current COVID-19 pandemic and associated recession have only made matters worse. Children, especially those in communities of color, face a host of challenges associated with the economic, educational, and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic."
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This article appears in Oct 8-15, 2020.