The institute and Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute released two reports this week on how the Affordable Care Act has affected children and parents.
For children, the answer is "not much." The act was designed to expand health-care access for adults; most low-income children are already covered by Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. The study on children found no significant change in insurance rates, though researchers had hoped there might be a "welcome mat effect," with publicity about the act helping impoverished parents who hadn't enrolled their children realize they're eligible for aid.
Parents saw the biggest increases in insurance coverage in the 28 states that have expanded Medicaid coverage for low-income adults. There, the uninsured have gone from 15 percent of the population in the second quarter of 2013 to 10 percent in the second quarter of this year, the report says. In the states that didn't participate in Medicaid expansion, the rate went from 21.5 percent to 19 percent.
Such large Southern states as North Carolina, Florida and Georgia are among those that didn't expand, which probably explains the disproportionate regional showing. The South accounted for 49.9 percent of the nation's uninsured parents, with the West at 30 percent, Midwest at 12.6 percent and Northeast at 7.5 percent. State data won't be available until next year, the researchers said Tuesday.
Researchers grouped the two studies in the belief that expanding coverage for parents ultimately benefits children, especially if it means parents get treatment for depression and other issues that detract from family well being.
Most uninsured parents described their health as good or excellent, though almost one in three said they had at least two days of "poor mental health" in the past 30 days.