More than 1 in 10 Texas kids don’t have health insurance. The number is growing
More than 73,000 Texas kids under age 6 lost health insurance between 2022 and 2024, according to a new report.
The loss means Texas continues to have the highest rate of uninsured children in the nation. More than 1 in 10 Texas kids under 6 don’t have health insurance, according to the report, which was released by the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University.
Without health insurance, young children are at risk of falling behind developmentally, said Elisabeth Burak, a senior fellow at the center. Infants and toddlers typically have 12 doctors’ visits before the age of 3, Burak said. Without health insurance, kids are likely to miss those visits.
“This really should be a wake-up call for state leaders,” Burak said. “We’re concerned … that we’re going to see this only get worse in the years to come.”
The uninsured rate for children under 6 increased significantly in Texas, from 7.9% uninsured in 2022 to 10.8% uninsured in 2024, according to the report. Texas’ rate is more than double the national rate of uninsurance for kids.
Joan Alker, executive director of the center and a research professor at Georgetown, called on the Trump administration to address the rise in uninsurance. Nationally, nearly 1.2 million children under 6 are uninsured, the highest level in nearly a decade.
“At a time when we’re hearing a lot of rhetoric from the Trump administration about protecting children’s health and their access to healthcare, we have heard nothing about this trend from them, which is a disaster for children in the making,” Alker said.
There are 253,100 uninsured children under 6 in Texas, according to the report.
The increase in uninsured children under 6 is likely due in part to the Medicaid unwinding process, which refers to the end of the pandemic-era requirement that those on Medicaid be able to stay enrolled in the program without interruption. When that requirement ended in 2023, hundreds of thousands of Texans lost their Medicaid health insurance.
