Recently, the Census Bureau released data showing that, in 2023, Texas was the state with the highest percentage of uninsured children.
Texas left all other states in the dust, with 12% of its children lacking health insurance. In distant second place was Arizona, where 7% of children were uninsured. The national average was 5%. Put simply, a childhood without health insurance is more than twice as common in Texas as in the rest of America.
This ranking is nothing new. Texas has held this shameful title for 15 years straight. And every year, two out of every three uninsured children in Texas have been Hispanic.
Administrative hurdles and paperwork were responsible for removing more than 1.35 million eligible children from Medicaid and CHIP last year. In a September 2024 ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation, Texas Health and Human Services acknowledged errors in rushing to remove children from their coverage. This is despite several warnings from federal officials and from advocates including us at UnidosUS.