Cover the Uninsured Week
Help Uninsured Families During the Children's Health Insurance Drive
There are 9 million uninsured children in the U.S. The annual Cover the Uninsured Week awareness campaign helps uninsured families find proper health insurance.
The Cover the Uninsured Week kicked runs every year at the end of April. Cover the Uninsured highlights the uninsured crisis that affects 47 million Americans, including 9 million children.
Cover the Uninsured began when Congress initiated the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to provide children’s health insurance. Title XXI of the Social Security Act, SCHIP allows state-by-state governance of children’s health insurance program design.
In most states, you are eligible to get children’s health insurance if you:
- Don’t have health insurance for your family;
- Earn up to $34,100 annually for a family of four;
- Have uninsured children under the age of 18.
The children’s health insurance plan pays for doctor visits, immunizations, hospitalization and emergency room treatment, and includes families with various immigration status.
Learn more about the uninsured crisis in the U.S.- Myths and Facts from the Cover the Uninsured website:
- MYTH #1: Uninsured families are unemployed families. FACT: Eight out of 10 people with uninsured children are in working families.
- MYTH #2: Most uninsured Americans are minorities. FACT: Non-Hispanic whites make up half of the uninsured.
- MYTH #3: Only poor people don’t have children’s health insurance. FACT: Two years ago, over 32 million uninsured Americans had household incomes of $25,000 or more. (The federal poverty level for a family of four in 2005 was $19,350.)
- MYTH #4: It doesn’t matter if you have children’s health insurance. FACT: Approximately 18,000 uninsured Americans die each year because they are without health insurance (according to the Institute of Medicine).
- MYTH #5: Everyone, or almost everyone, who works for a big company has children’s health insurance. FACT: A study conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that in 2005, 23.1 percent of uninsured American workers age 18–64 were in firms employing more than 500 people.
Cover the Uninsured Week helps bring awareness to uninsured children by staging events and fundraisers across the U.S. Enrollment events have volunteers available to help uninsured families determine whether they qualify for programs like Medicaid, hospital charity care, prescription drug assistance or services provided by community health centers. If qualified, volunteers help uninsured families get the ball rolling by starting the application process together.
Some fast facts about the uninsured crisis faced in America today:
- There are 1.3 million uninsured children in Texas;
- 9% of uninsured families (non-elderly) earn more than $50,000 a year;
- Number of uninsured Americans (non-elderly) with a college education, graduate or professional degree- 17.8%.
Learn more about benefits for uninsured children or Cover the Uninsured events in your state.
Talk back with a writer: share your stories about covering the uninsured with Lisa Nichols.
