Children's Health Coverage Videos

CDF has launched a series short videos on the issue of children's health coverage and urging Congress to enact comprehensive reform to provide quality, affordable health coverage for all children.

Check out the videos and share them with your friends and family!

Top 12 Children's Health Coverage Myths

Children’s Health Coverage Facts Speak for Themselves

We can reform our broken child health system now or we will pay dearly later.

Myth #1:  Uninsured children can access the health care they need at the emergency room.

Fact:  Some uninsured parents postpone doctor visits for sick children, hoping they will get better without treatment.
Relying on emergency rooms for health care can result in worse health outcomes for children and higher costs to the community. In Texas, for example, the cost to visit a doctor in the early stages of an asthma attack is about $100, but going to the emergency room to treat full-blown asthma symptoms could lead to a three-day hospital stay costing more than $7,300.

Myth #2:  Working families can afford coverage.

Fact:  Since 2001, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums for families have increased 80%.
These costs have risen more than three times as fast as wages and almost four times the rate of inflation. The average annual premium for group coverage for a family is $13,375, which would take a full-time minimum wage worker more than eleven months to earn.

Myth #3:  It’s expensive to provide health coverage to children.

Fact:  Children are far less expensive to cover than adults and the most cost-effective investment we can make in health care.
Health coverage for a child costs only about a third of what it costs to insure a single working adult. Providing children with comprehensive, consistent health coverage could yield substantial cost savings by addressing their health needs now rather than letting health problems become costlier later. For example, one third of two-year-olds are not fully immunized and immunizing them saves the nation more than $43 billion over their lifetime.

Myth #4:  The U.S. health care system may have problems but it’s not broken.

Fact:  Although the United States spends the highest amount of money per person on health care, our children’s health fares poorly compared to other wealthy countries.
Among industrialized nations, we rank first in health expenditures, but 22nd in low birthweight rates, 23rd in life expectancy and 27th in infant mortality rates. About two-thirds of the more than 8 million uninsured children are currently eligible for either Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or Medicaid but are not enrolled largely due to state bureaucratic barriers.

Myth #5:  Uninsured children would have coverage if their parents worked.

Fact: Almost 90 percent of uninsured children live in families where at least one parent works.
Because a parent is employed does not guarantee affordable coverage for children. And millions of parents have lost their jobs—and often their health insurance—during the recession.

Myth #6:  All children can get government health coverage if their families don’t have private insurance.

Fact:  The recent expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will leave approximately 5-6 million children uninsured and millions more underinsured.
2,200 children are born uninsured every day in America. Another child is born uninsured every 42 seconds.

Myth #7:  Children can get coverage through their parents’ employer.

Fact:  Health coverage under employer-sponsored insurance has declined.
Some businesses have dropped coverage for workers and their families while others only cover the workers, but not their children. The percentage of employers offering health benefits has dropped to 63 percent in 2008.

Myth #8:  Children don't really need health coverage because they’re healthy.

Fact:  Children only have one childhood! They need regular preventive care to ensure healthy growth and development.
In the first year of life, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends newborns have six well-baby visits. Throughout childhood, children need regular preventive care, including full vision, dental and hearing care to identify and treat conditions early so that they can reach their full potential.

Myth #9:  Parents can easily get health care for their children.

Fact:  State bureaucratic barriers make it very difficult for parents to secure needed health coverage for their eligible children.
That’s why about 6 million children who qualify for government health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP do not get it. Each state creates different enrollment and renewal policies resulting in an unjust 50-state lottery of geography. Barriers to getting and staying enrolled should be eliminated in every state and a national eligibility standard with a national safety net should be set for children wherever they live.

Myth #10:  Enrolling uninsured children in programs requires extensive costly outreach.

Fact:  It does not have to. There are countless easy opportunities to enroll children in health coverage—automatic enrollment at birth in the hospital, annual school registration, and regular health visits.
More than 70 percent of low-income uninsured children are in families receiving government assistance from the Women, Infant and Children’s Program (WIC), National School Lunch Program or food stamps. These programs can provide automatic enrollment for many eligible but uninsured low-income children.

Myth #11:  Government health programs are bureaucratic and inefficient.

Fact:  Actually, Medicare and Medicaid, the two largest government-run health care programs, operate at a far lower cost than their private counterparts and get much higher satisfaction ratings from users.
Private insurance companies have administrative costs of about 14 percent compared to about three percent for Medicare.

Myth #12:  All pregnant women have health coverage.

Fact:  There are about 800,000 uninsured pregnant women in America.
They receive less prenatal care and face greater risks for expensive and tragic outcomes including maternal complications, low birth weight babies, and even infant death. The U.S. shockingly ranks 27th out of 30 industrialized countries on infant mortality.