In all of the recent debate over who deserves access to health care in our wealthy country, one often forgotten fact is that this is one more area where Black children and other children of color have always been left behind. Of the nine million uninsured
In all of the recent debate over who deserves access to health care in our wealthy country, one often forgotten fact is that this is one more area where Black children and other children of color have always been left behind. Of the nine million uninsured children in America, minority children are uninsured and underinsured at far greater rates than white children.
One in 13 white children are uninsured, compared to one in five Latino children, one in five American Indian children, one in eight Black children and one in nine Asian/Pacific Islander children. Health coverage for all children is a necessary step toward eliminating health disparities and ensuring access to care. And now is the time to take that step with real child health care reform.
Right now, we live in a nation where children of color experience significant health disparities that begin before birth and follow them throughout their lives. Black infants are more than twice as likely as white infants to die before their first birthday and have higher infant mortality rates than children in 62 nations, including Barbados, Malaysia and Thailand. One in every seven babies born to Black mothers is born at a low birth weight, a core risk factor for infant mortality and childhood developmental disorders. The rate of Black infants born at a low birth weight in the United States is worse than the rate of low birth weight in more than 100 nations including Algeria, Botswana and Panama.
As they grow, Black and Latino children are worse off than White children in having access to regular health care. Black children are 56 percent more likely than White children to have gone more than two years without seeing a doctor and almost three times as likely as White children to use the emergency room as their usual place of health care. Latino children are two and a half times as likely as white children to have gone more than two years without seeing a doctor, are more than twice as likely as white children to have an unmet medical need and are more than twice as likely as white children to have no regular place for health care.
Not surprisingly, Black and Latino children also have higher incidences of childhood illnesses than white children. For example, one out of eight Black children has asthma–one of the most common illnesses in children–compared to one in 12 white children. One out of every four Black two-year-olds and one out of every five Latino two-year-olds is not fully immunized although we know that every dollar spent vaccinating children against measles, mumps and rubella saves $16 in future costs. More than 30 percent of Black children and about 40 percent of Latino children report not receiving dental care.
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