The nationwide uninsured rate for young children stands at 5.3% — the highest it’s been in almost a decade, a new report says.
A new report found that the number of uninsured young children increased significantly between 2022 and 2024, leaving more children under the age of 6 with less certain access to health care. And Texas, the report found, is the state with the highest rate of young children without insurance.
A report published Monday by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families found that the nationwide uninsured rate for young children — defined as children younger than 6 — grew a full percentage point from 2022 to 2024. That puts the current national uninsured rate for young children at 5.3%, the report said, which is the highest it’s been in almost a decade.
The report pinned the increase, at least in part, to the nationwide Medicaid unwinding. The unwinding has seen millions of people disenrolled from Medicaid, after COVID-era enrollment protocols were removed in 2023.
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Texas’ uninsured rate for the young children is more than double the national average, at 10.8%. That means more than 1 in 10 young Texas children did not have health care coverage in 2024.
Between the two years that the report analyzed, the number of uninsured young children in Texas increased from about 180,000 to about 253,000. That’s an increase of more than 73,000 uninsured children under the age of 6.
By sheer numbers, according to the report, Texas accounts for more than one-fifth of the country’s uninsured young children.
In a Monday press call, the executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Joan Alker, said children who lose Medicaid coverage are often still eligible for that coverage.
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“We know that, when children lose Medicaid, it’s generally not because they’re not eligible anymore,” Alker said. “It usually has to do with paperwork barriers, fear, other kinds of issues.”
Texas’ ranking among the uninsured young children statistics also fits in with the state’s overall health insurance rates. Texas has long led the country in the percentage of people of all ages who do not have health care coverage. In 2023, according to a report from The Commonwealth Fund, more than 21% of Texans were uninsured.
For young children, though, the effects of being uninsured may be magnified.
In the press call, Georgetown experts noted that the early childhood years are particularly crucial for development. Not having insurance — and therefore not having as much access to health care — can be catastrophic for a young child.
Alker said the increasing uninsured rates are “a disaster, for children, in the making.”
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Elisabeth Wright Burak, a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, said on the press call that she’s concerned the uninsured rate for young children may have continued to increase in 2025 and 2026, the two years after the period analyzed for the report.
“This really should be a wake-up call for state leaders,” Burak said. “We’re concerned based on the data … that we’re going to see this only get worse in the years to come.”