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Snapshot for September 16, 2004.

Health insurance coverage and children

From 2000 to 2003, children fared the worst of any group in terms of declines in employer-provided health coverage. Fortunately, existing government insurance (i.e., Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs) increased enough to offset the sharp decline as shown in the chart. The percent of children covered by employer-provided health insurance fell from 65.6% to 61.2%, while the percentage of children covered by Medicaid/SCHIP increased from 20.9% to 26.4%.  Overall, 4.3 million more children were covered by these programs in 2003 than in 2000.  This increase more than compensated for the 2.4 million decline of employer coverage among American youth.

For more on the decline of employer-provided health insurance, read the September 16 Issue Brief, The Chronic Problem of Declining Health Coverage.

This Snapshot was written by EPI Economist Elise Gould.