Wisconsin’s leadership in providing access to health insurance has been gradually slipping, and the latest Census Bureau data on coverage of children illustrates a continuation of that trend. Although Wisconsin continues to have one of the lower uninsured rates in the U.S., we’ve fallen behind all of our neighbors, as the following graph illustrates.

Because October 5th is national Children’s Health Day, today is a good time to take a close look at the latest data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) and the trend lines on children’s health coverage. The most recent ACS data shows that there were about 58,000 uninsured children in Wisconsin in 2014, which was 4.4% of our state’s kids. That’s not bad, but the bar graph illustrates that we could be doing much better.

The average uninsured rate among our four neighbors is 3.5%. The difference between Wisconsin’s 4.4% rate and that of our neighbors may not sound like much, but consider the following:

• If Wisconsin achieved the average uninsured rate for kids of our four neighbors (3.5%), we would have about 11,800 fewer uninsured children, which is a 20.5% reduction in the number of uninsured children.
• If we reached the 3.2% rate achieved by Iowa, Wisconsin would have about 15,800 fewer uninsured children.

The primary reason we have been falling behind our neighbors is that coverage of children has only improved slowly in Wisconsin over the last five years, while other states have made more rapid progress. As the next graph illustrates, Wisconsin has fallen from having the 11th best rate of kids’ coverage in 2009 to 16th in 2014. Minnesota used to be 28th but has now jumped past Wisconsin to 13th best in 2014, following Michigan at 12th best, while Illinois ranked 7th and Iowa was 5th.

The decline in Wisconsin’s rank can be attributed in part to a drop in the number of children participating in BadgerCare. That total (including Transitional Medicaid) has fallen by more than 10,800 kids since September 2013, when the state first began notifying families in BadgerCare that they might lose their eligibility in 2014.

There are several things the state could do to improve BadgerCare participation and catch up to our neighbors in improving access to preventive health care for kids:

1) Utilize the Affordable Care Act to expand eligibility for parents, because research shows that parental coverage is closely linked to child coverage and limiting coverage for parents can have a negative effect on children.

2) Carefully study and implement options for improving the renewal process, in order to reduce the churning that reduces participation among eligible families.

3) Improve outreach—particularly among immigrants, who are sometimes unaware that their lawfully present children are eligible for Medicaid, even when the parents are not.

Sashi Gregory and Jon Peacock