North Carolina broke a record for number of children covered by health insurance. According to the 2017 NC Child Health Report Card, nearly 96 percent of children in the state have coverage.
The report is issued annually by organizations North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) and NC Child.
“This is significant,” said Laila Bell, NC Child Director of Research and Data. “Because we know that health insurance really does promote children’s best health, by allowing them to access critical medical care when they are ill, by also giving them access to the preventative care that helps them from getting ill, and really it’s an important resource in children’s lives.”
Laila Bell spoke with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.
Bell said the report card tracks key indicators of child health in four areas: Healthy Births, Access to Care, Safe Homes and Neighborhoods and Health Risk Factors.
She said to keep the number of insured children on the rise, it’s imperative for parents to have many options for obtaining coverage, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and NC Health Choice.
“If we were, for example, to enact the spending limits that congress is currently debating, or potentially turn Medicaid into a block grant program, what we know is that would affect therefore more than 1.1 million children across the state,” she said.
But that’s only one subject North Carolina received a grade in. Bell said the organizations also graded the state for child poverty in the report card, and gave it an “F.”
“This is a significant public health challenge, child health challenge for our state,” she said. “We know that income is linked to health outcomes, so individuals and children who live in higher income homes and families are less likely to suffer from chronic disease and illness and research has also shown that it’s a link to things like preventable disease and death and illness.”
The report card shows that over half of children under age five in North Carolina live in poor or near poor homes. One in three children live in homes with a high housing cost burden. One in seven children live in high poverty neighborhoods, and African-American, American Indian and Latinx children are most likely to live in concentrated poverty.
Bell said the first step to changing the economic security rate is to get involved at the local level.
“We have seen communities across the state of North Carolina get serious and intentional about addressing child poverty in their community,” she said. “This is important. We talked about more than half of the kids in our state are living in poverty. That’s a significant health risk factor and a challenge for children to be able to live their healthiest lives.”
She also said it’s important for all NC residents to voice opinions to the state legislature because kids can’t.
“Ultimately what we need our state policymakers to do is to demonstrate a commitment to addressing the issue of child poverty, and to really make sure that we have the political will to move those types of policies through the general assembly and onto the governor’s desk,” Bell said.
The complete list of the grades on the NC Child Health Report Card are:
- A — Insurance Coverage
- B — Breastfeeding, Immunization, Postpartum Health, Teen Pregnancy and Family Involvement
- C — Preconception Health, Maternal Health and Support, Health Services Utilization, Housing and Neighborhood Stability, Child Abuse and Neglect, Education, Environmental Health, Child Fatality, Oral Health
- D — Birth Outcomes, Children In and Out of Home Care; Healthy Eating and Active Living; Tobacco, Alcohol and Substance Use; School Health; Mental Health
- F — Economic Security
Click here to view the entire 2017 NC Child Health Report Card.
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