UNINSURED RATE OF POOR CHILDREN DECLINES, BUT REMAINS ABOVE PRE-WELFARE REFORM LEVELS Nearly One in Two Working Poor Adults Remain Uninsured by Jocelyn Guyer Overview

The number of Americans without health insurance fell from 44.3 million to 42.6 million in 1999, the first decline since 1987. More than half of this decline of 1.7 million people was driven by improvements in the extent to which children have health care coverage. Between 1998 and 1999, the number of uninsured children dropped by one million, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total decline. Many of the children who gained coverage were poor children, suggesting that efforts to enroll more Medicaid-eligible children into coverage and to implement the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) are beginning to show results.