The number of uninsured children in the U.S. is rising.

Since 2016, the number of uninsured children has risen by approximately 726,000 as the uninsured rate among children rose from 4.7 percent to 5.7 percent in 2019.

An increase of 320,000 children between 2018 and 2019 was the largest such increase in more than a decade.  Texas accounts for one-third of the four-year increase, or about 243,000 newly uninsured children, with Florida second with 55,000 newly uninsured children.

Any increase in the number of uninsured children poses a special challenge for private safety-net hospitals because those hospitals are generally located in communities with larger numbers of low-income and uninsured residents than areas served by the typical community hospital.

Learn more about the increase in the number of uninsured children in recent years and why it occurred in the report “Children’s Uninsured Rate Rises by Largest Annual Jump in More Than a Decade” from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families.