| Dangerous Snowball Effect of Bad Health Policy
If national leaders really want to Make America Healthy Again, pushing kids off health insurance is not the way to go.
In Pennsylvania today, more than 153,000 children do not have health insurance, the highest in a decade. In terms of numbers, four southeastern PA counties – Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Philadelphia – are among the seven counties that make up nearly half of all uninsured PA children and teens.
Let’s be clear – children who are insured are healthier. Uninsured kids are four times more likely to not have a primary care doctor, and three times more likely to delay or not get care versus kids with insurance. Parents simply can’t afford regular checkups and often have to put off seeing a doctor until their child is so sick, they need emergency care. Dental and vision care? Far too financially out of reach for uninsured families.
Federal policy shifts are directly to blame for children not getting care. Thousands of PA children and teens lost Medicaid coverage after the federal government reinstated pre-COVID enrollment requirements in 2024. While CHIP enrollment rose 22% in that time period, there’s no data showing exactly what happened to those kids. It’s important to note that it was the confusing enrollment red-tape, not ineligibility, that caused families to get kicked off.
Add to that the refusal of Congressional Republicans to renew health care subsidies that make it possible for working Americans to afford coverage in the ACA marketplace. Nationally, around 800,000 fewer people have enrolled compared to a similar time last year, marking a 3.5% drop in total enrollment so far this year. That includes a decrease in both new and existing enrollees. Experts expect more people to drop their coverage once they get their bill this month and have to cancel because they can’t afford it.
Yesterday, to deflect rising criticism over the rising costs, President Trump brushed the dust off an old policy talking point: put money into individual health savings accounts that Americans could use to cover health costs. But he didn’t offer any details about how much money and what it could be used for. Besides, it’s a lot too late for the millions of Americans who are trying to figure out how they’re going to pay for premiums now.
In just the first few months of his Administration, Donald Trump was able to push through a massive tax bill that will, over a decade, give away $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and cut more than $1 trillion in food assistance and health care, causing 10 billion Americans to lose coverage. Juxtapose that with his complete inability to address health care costs for the people who are getting a pittance from the tax cuts but rely heavily on the ACA marketplace subsidies – small business owners, gig workers, farmers, and ranchers, and their families.
One cost-saving, but life-threatening, tactic included in the tax cut bill is Medicaid work requirements meant to save money by kicking more low-income people off coverage. Kids and teens are going to feel the hit because children’s coverage is largely determined by whether their parents are covered. Twenty-one percent of children with uninsured parents lack coverage; for children with insured parents, less than 1% of them lack coverage.
All told, these changing federal health care policies are going to make America sicker, with far more children growing up without the medical care they need to be healthy, strong, and successful. Together we must fight back against these irresponsible changes – it’s what the doctor orders.
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