It's inspiring, truly, that everyone in Washington is so concerned about the health and well-being of the 93 teenagers who serve as pages each year for the House and Senate.
But it would be nice if the nation's political leaders could spare a moment for another 8,310,000 young people who appear to have escaped their notice.
That, according to the Census Bureau, is the number of children younger than 18 in America who lack health insurance.
Until recently, children had been a bright spot in a dismal healthcare picture. Since President Bush took office, the total number of people in America without insurance has jumped from 39.8 million in 2000 to more than 46.5 million in 2005. The percentage of people receiving healthcare through their employer has dropped every year since 2000.
Children haven't been immune to that trend. The share of children receiving healthcare through their parents' employer has also been falling. But until last year, government had stepped in to offset those losses.
From 1998 through 2004, the number of children enrolled in Medicaid (a state-federal partnership for the poor) and the Children's Health Insurance Program (a state-federal partnership for children in working poor families) swelled by more than 5.6 million. That expanding public safety net steadily reduced the number of uninsured children, despite the continuing erosion of employment-based coverage.
In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, that relatively benign picture darkened. Employment-based coverage for kids continued its decline. But with state budgets squeezed, the number of children receiving insurance from public programs also fell. These twin retrenchments produced a jump of nearly 400,000 in the number of uninsured children -- the largest annual increase since 1995.
Most Americans would probably be surprised by the profile of the 8.3 million kids without insurance. Nearly nine in 10 live in families where at least one parent works, according to a recent study of census data by Families USA, a healthcare advocacy group. Nearly six in 10 live in two-parent families. Almost a third of uninsured kids live in families where both parents work.
Less surprising are the consequences of lacking insurance. Analyzing another government survey, the report found that children without insurance were much less likely than those who were covered to receive regular check-ups, and much more likely to have unmet medical needs. Children without coverage were three times more likely than insured kids to go an entire year without seeing a doctor.
