Report: Lower Rates Of Uninsured Kids Linked To Medicaid Expansion

By Eric Galatas, Public News Service

March 15, 2021

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- As Wyoming lawmakers consider a proposal to expand Medicaid coverage, a new Georgetown University Center for Children and Families study shows states with expanded coverage have significantly lower uninsured rates for children.

Josh Hannes, vice president of the Wyoming Hospital Association, supports Senate File 154, in part because expanded coverage would reduce more than $100 million per year in uncompensated care when patients can't pay.

He said expanded coverage would help 24,000 Wyoming residents who qualify to access health care.

"We all care about our neighbors and our friends and the people we work with and go to school with," Hannes explained. "Most of the people in Wyoming that would fall into this group are younger women with children. This is an opportunity to help them. It's a way to help your local community hospitals."

Wyoming lawmakers have long resisted expanding coverage under the Affordable Care Act, citing concerns about the costs.

The recently passed COVID relief package increases federal funds for the general Medicaid population, which proponents of the bill note would bring an additional $120 million into the state if lawmakers approve the measure.

Medicaid expansion was designed to help uninsured adults who could not afford private insurance.

Adam Searing, health-policy research professor at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and the report's lead author, said the policy change also has helped enroll more children, who often are already eligible for coverage.

"They just haven't been enrolled," Searing pointed out. "So, just like when someone has health insurance available through their work and signs up their family through their work, expanding Medicaid allows the parents to come in and realize that they can get their kids signed up, too."

Georgetown researchers found children in states that expanded Medicaid are almost twice as likely to have health coverage than those in the 12 non-expansion states.

Wyoming ranks second nationally behind Texas for its rate of uninsured children at slightly more than 10%.

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