Texas, Nevada, Montana have highest number of uninsured children in U.S.

The U.S. Census Bureau today released 2010 estimates of health insurance coverage for each of the nation’s roughly 3,140 counties in its Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE) report.  Health insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals.

Mapping tools available on the SAHIE website show regional trends in coverage and that small counties with a high range of uninsured children are mostly in Texas, Nevada and Montana. Small counties with a low range of uninsured are mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.

By 2014, changes to the law will extend certain Medicaid benefits to uninsured people falling into specific income groups, and SAHIE estimates will permit users to track the impact of the law on small counties. The estimates also enable local planners to determine, for instance, the counties in which low-income children are most likely to lack health insurance. 

“The information provided by SAHIE data is important to us in program planning and management, targeting and resource allocation decisions and evaluation, ”said Marcus Plescia, director of the CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control in Atlanta. “We use SAHIE data to more effectively gauge the level of need for breast and cervical cancer screening in various geographic jurisdictions across the country,” he added.

SAHIE is partially funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others in the health care field. Starting next year, the five-year estimates from ACS will include statistics on health insurance coverage for all areas, regardless of size.

For more information on this subject, go to: http://www.census.gov/did/www/sahie/index.html