Idaho kids lost health insurance at record rates from 2022 to 2024, report finds

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — The rate of children in Idaho without health insurance rose the second fastest in the nation recently, a new report found.

From 2022 to 2024, Idaho’s child uninsured rate rose from 5.7% to 8.1% — growing Idaho’s number of uninsured children from 28,000 to 40,000 kids, according to a report released earlier this month by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

The report analyzed health insurance rates for children across the country as states started to remove people from Medicaid after pandemic-era enrollment protections ended. That process, called Medicaid unwinding, contributed to Idaho’s sharp rise in the rate of uninsured children, the center’s executive director, Joan Alker, said at a webinar earlier this month.

“All it takes is one broken arm on the school playground to financially devastate a family already struggling to make ends meet,“ Ivy Walker, a policy associate at the health advocacy group Idaho Voices for Children, said in a statement. “The number of Idaho children going without health insurance should be a wake-up call for Idaho policymakers and the unfortunate truth is that children’s access to health care is about to get much worse.”

Idaho did Medicaid unwinding fast, and most Idahoans who lost Medicaid through the process were removed for not replying to the state’s requests for information, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Almost three-quarters of the nearly 50,000 kids who lost Medicaid were removed from the health insurance public assistance program for non-responses, Idaho Voices for Children said in a news release Tuesday.

The group called on Idaho’s congressional delegation to help by extending enhanced premium tax credits families can use to buy discounted private health insurance through the state’s exchange.

The credits are set to expire at the end of this year, and Congress hasn’t extended them. Without the credits, 35,000 Idahoans could lose health insurance because of steep premium hikes, the Sun previously reported.