America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2011
Health Insurance Coverage
Children with health insurance, whether public or private, are more likely than children without insurance to have a regular and accessible source of health care. The percentage of children who have health insurance coverage for at least part of the year is one measure of the extent to which families can obtain preventive care or health care for a sick or injured child.
Indicator HC1: Percentage of children ages 0–17 covered by health insurance at some time during the year by type of health insurance, 1987–2009
NOTE: Public health insurance for children consists primarily of Medicaid, but also includes Medicare, Children's Health Insurance Programs (CHIP), and Tricare, the health benefit program for members of the armed forces and their dependents. Estimates beginning in 1999 include follow-up questions to verify health insurance status. Children are considered to be covered by health insurance if they had public or private coverage any time during the year. The data from 1996 to 2004 have been revised since initially published. For more information, see http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/data/usernote/index.html.
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, unpublished tables from the Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements.
- In 2009, 90 percent of children had health insurance coverage at some point during the year, which was not statistically different from the percentage in 2008. In each year since 1987, between 85 and 90 percent of children have had health insurance.
- The number of children without health insurance at any time during 2009 was 7.5 million (10 percent of all children).43
- In 2009, 60 percent of children were covered by private health insurance at some time during the year, and 37 percent were covered by public health insurance at some time during the year. (Both estimates include the children covered by both public and private insurance at some time during the year; hence, the estimates sum to more than the estimated 90 percent of children with coverage.)Hispanic children were less likely to have health insurance, compared with White, non-Hispanic or Black children.
- In 2009, 83 percent of Hispanic children were covered at some time during the year by health insurance, compared with 93 percent of White, non-Hispanic children and 89 percent of Black children.2
- The type of insurance varied by the age of the child: younger children were more likely to have public health insurance than older children, while older children were more likely to have private health insurance than younger children.
2 Federal surveys now give respondents the option of reporting more than one race. Therefore, two basic ways of defining a race group are possible. A group such as Black may be defined as those who reported Black and no other race (the race-alone or single-race concept) or as those who reported Black regardless of whether they also reported another race (the race-aloneor- in-combination concept). This indicator shows data using the first approach (race alone). Use of the single-race population does not imply that it is the preferred method of presenting or analyzing data. The U.S. Census Bureau uses a variety of approaches. Data on race and Hispanic origin are collected separately. Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
43 DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B.D., and Smith, J.C. (2010, September). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2009 (Current Population Reports, P60-238[RV]). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf.