The Effects of Medicaid Expansions on Insurance Coverage of Children

Abstract

In the Winter 1995 issue of The Future of Children, the Child Indicators article examined recent trends in health insurance coverage for children. A major conclusion of that article was that the proportion of children covered by private, employment-based health insurance has been declining in recent years while changes in the rules for eligibility for Medicaid have made that program increasingly important for children. Nearly eight million more children were covered by Medicaid in 1993 than in 1988, largely as a result of the eligibility expansions. However, the number of uninsured children grew by about one million during that same period.