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Four Million U.S. Children Had No Health Insurance in 2024
- hereme888 11mo agoAnd it's likely to get worse now that insurance prices skyrocketed.
- freedomben 11mo agoFor my kids, health insurance premium would have been almost $2k per month. In a typical year we spend about $1,200 total on medical stuff just paying out of pocket. Also keep in mind that premiums are not all you pay - there's also deductible and co-pays on top of that! It's not hard to math that up and see how insane doing the health insurance would be. Yes there's the catastrophic risk of a bad accident or ER visit or something, and that's worth some cost, but even saving half the premiums in a money market account not only provides a good cushion for that, but if we don't use the money we actually get to keep it!
- dboreham 11mo agoAnd this is why you can't have a system where people can opt out of paying for healthcare.
- hnuser123456 11mo agoAnd how many zeros does that justify tacking onto realistic fair-market pricing on meds and procedures to force people to "opt in"?
- ocschwar 11mo agoThe value you get from the health care system isn't just from the services they provide when/if you need them. It's from the system existing and being ready to help you. We're not talking about widgets, onions, haircuts, or pork bellies here. You can't opt out of the system existing. And you can't opt out of the horrific consequences if the system doesn't exist. So it's a bit silly to talk about health care like it's something that has a free market.
- hnuser123456 11mo agoI work at a hospital, so should I get better rates than everyone who doesn't, since I'm helping keep that system ready?
- ocschwar 11mo agoWhatever it takes to keep you from leaving your post.
- freedomben 11mo ago> And this is why you can't have a system where people can opt out of paying for healthcare. We do pay for our healthcare. We don't pay for health insurance. I get the general point you're making and I'm not trying to be pedantic, but I do think it's important to distinguish between the two in order to have a productive exchange.
- senordevnyc 11mo agoBut you wouldn't pay for your healthcare if you had a major event that cost $500k+. The rest of us would be left holding the bag. I don't think you're doing anything wrong, but I do think we need a system everyone is a part of paying for, via health insurance mandate, single payer, etc. Or we let people opt out completely, to where a family like yours just wouldn't receive care if you can't pay for it, but I don't think this is the world we want to live in.
- Timshel 11mo agoYou can if not every actor in your system is trying to gouge the others ...
- koolba 11mo agoThe ACA has specific language that limits insurance company profits to a percentage of gross costs of care. It’s in their interests to have the provider costs be as high as possible as it directly limits their own profits. To put it another way, when the private equity that bought your local doctor’s office raises their prices, your insurance company wins.
- msandford 11mo agoI suspect that the parent does in fact pay for any healthcare that they need or that their kids need. They just aren't buying insurance because the price of the insurance far outweighs their normal spending. This is the real problem with health insurance is that it covers relatively routine and non emergency healthcare services where you can ship around and have market forces encourage people to find efficiency. I understand the "if I'm dying from a car crash I can't shop around" argument and I agree. But that's very different than shopping for a family doc you like for the half dozen times a year you or your family will need to see someone for a strep test and maybe antibiotics.
- ashleyn 11mo agoIt would be nice if health insurance were, well, insurance, and not some bastard mix of cost sharing and collective bargaining. The closest you get to "catastrophic only" insurance is an obamacare bronze and/or a high deductible plan with an HSA. Same service, same networks, but you pay less premiums and thus keep what you don't spend. Health catastrophes are more likely than you may think, so I would suggest a HDHP+HSA at the very least. It's very difficult to self insure against a cancer diagnosis that may blow a million dollars in a year. I'm a fairly high net worth individual with a high deductible plan. Setting aside the deductible amount in savings (often, tax free with the HSA) and keeping it every year you have good health is OP.
- patja 11mo agoHDHP is good advice but doesn't save anything from the prices cited above. My HDHP Bronze plan is over 2k/month for 3 people.
- giantg2 11mo agoNot to mention, this paradigm completely fails for almost anyone with an income that isn't above the 50th percentile.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> this paradigm completely fails for almost anyone with an income that isn't above the 50th percentile I'm in Wyoming, and our threshold is under 200% the poverty line. That's $53,300 for a family of 3 [1]. Median household income–nationally–is $84k [2]. In Wyoming, it's $75k [3]. That's a gap. But it's a workable one. [1] https://health.wyo.gov/healthcarefin/chip/doesmychildqualify/ https://health.wyo.gov/healthcarefin/chip/doesmychildqualify... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [3] https://usafacts.org/answers/what-is-the-income-of-a-us-household/state/wyoming/ https://usafacts.org/answers/what-is-the-income-of-a-us-hous...
- deleted 11mo ago
- guywithahat 11mo agoThere are programs in the US to give poor people healthcare for free; I was unemployed for a while and on one. Surprisingly simple and easy to set up. The issue highlighted in this article seems to largely be due to illegal immigration, not due to a lack of support. If we curbed illegal immigration the problem would likely fix itself, although this article isn't very clear on who is or isn't a citizen in their numbers which makes it hard to use for anything useful
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 11mo agohttps://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-people-are-on-medicaid-in-the-us/country/united-states/ https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-people-are-on-medicaid... https://usafacts.org/just-the-facts/do-you-qualify/health/ https://usafacts.org/just-the-facts/do-you-qualify/health/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-will-the-obbb-impact-medicaid/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-will-the-obbb-impact-medic... https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11912 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11912 https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/5-key-facts-about-immigrants-and-medicaid/ https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/5-key-fa... https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/undocumented-immigrants-snap-medicaid-benefits/ https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/undocumented... > Do undocumented immigrants qualify for federal healthcare benefits? No. Undocumented immigrants do not have access to federally funded healthcare coverage, including Medicaid, Medicare, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). They are also unable to purchase health insurance coverage from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace.
- guywithahat 11mo agoRight, they shouldn't have access to ACA, nor should a citizen of Denmark or India. They are foreign nationals and including them in the 4 million uninsured children in the US statistic makes the statistic worthless. My issue with this article is it suggests there's some massive child uninsured problem in the US, but to get that number they're including foreign citizens. If we included all of south america I'm sure we could find tens of millions of uninsured people. If we included the rest of the world it might be closer to hundreds of millions. That doesn't mean there's a problem with the ACA. There could be a problem with it, but this 4 million number doesn't get us closer to an answer.
- anubistheta 11mo agoThat's why I liked catastrophic health care plans. Insurance works best when it covers rare, expensive events. Otherwise, it interferes with the process. My car insurance doesn't cover oil changes or new tires, but if I get I crash and injure someone, it kicks in. Homeowners insurance doesn't cover a routine roof replacement, but it will if there's storm damage. That's how health insurance should work. A catastrophic health care plan has low premiums and high deductibles. You also get access to a tax advantaged savings account to save up for future events. So you can take the money you saved on premiums and pay for medical expenses tax free. Or let the money accumulate to cover future medical expenses or even retirement!
- giantg2 11mo ago"A catastrophic health care plan has low premiums and high deductibles." Except they don't really exist anymore. You can get really high deductibles, but the premiums are still ridiculous. The plans have to cover many non-catastrophic events now by law. The other problem is that the cost and frequency of things like auto accidents or home damage is generally much lower than for health events, and generally include much lower caps on how much they will payout.
- bombcar 11mo agoThis was the intent of the insurance agencies, they sold catastrophic plans but didn't really make a ton on them, so they negotiated basically not being able to sell them anymore. Self-insurance is the final catastrophic plan and the numbers keep looking better every day.
- patja 11mo agoI would like to get a catastrophic plan that doesn't cover things I would categorize as consequences of bad choices. I get that covering these things is less costly for society than just letting things run their course, but it does drive costs onto everyone else's premium. Catastrophic plans are still quite costly because they aren't really a pure insurance product. Mine is over 2k/month for 3 people on an ACA Bronze plan with HSA.
- giantg2 11mo ago"but even saving half the premiums in a money market account not only provides a good cushion for that, but if we don't use the money we actually get to keep it!" Until they require a $50k life flight or $100k brain, heart, etc surgery. The problem is that insurance was intended to cover the large, infrequent costs - house fires, totaled cars, etc. The deductibles are intended to influence people to pay out of pocket for the smaller expenses. The problem with health insurance is that the deductibles, premiums, and cost of care are out of control. The laws mandate significant amounts of coverage for a plan. The costs can be as high as a house fire, but happen much more frequently within the population. You can't get a plan that just covers expenses over $10k-20k per year. You can get kind of close with the super high deductibles but it still has to cover some things before the limit. Even if you could get to that, you're still looking at high costs when you consider the odds of something like 1 out of 100 people might need a $100k procedure in a year (made up numbers).
- Escapado 11mo agoGenuine question: How does it happen that a heart surgery costs 100k? 2 surgeons (200$/h) + 6 nurses(100$/h) for 10 hours would be 10k. Where do the other 100k come from? Is it the equipment cost? Consumables? After care? Or are the margins just ridiculous?
- dec0dedab0de 11mo agoIn the breakdown it's usually the anesthesia that costs the most. I think a big chunk of that goes to malpractice insurance.
- ben_w 11mo agoMalpractice insurance? One insurance premium is high in order to pay for the cost of another insurance premium? This seems… suboptimal. I'm in Germany, I don't know what we spend money on here because I'm still integrating myself and have not mastered the German language to the level of having opinions about the Krankenversicherungsbeitragsentlastungsgesetz, but I do know we spend about 2/3rds per capita as the USA for better outcomes: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health-expenditure https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health...
- alexfromapex 11mo agoThe US government should track how many Americans don't have health insurance, instead of caring so much about GDP or the stock market. It's a KPI that would clearly show how poorly the economy is actually functioning.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> US government should track how many Americans don't have health insurance "Source: The U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (data)". FTFA. You don't even have to read it. It's the source for the first graph. The one blown up before you even have to scroll.
- bpt3 11mo agolol, you beat me to it. Some people are so eager to be outraged they can't even bother to read anything.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoAll three of you in this thread dependency committed that crime. The first erroneously said the US doesn't track it, but the next two of you didn't read the rest of their post.
- bpt3 11mo agoI read the rest of it as well. When the first statement is false, the rest of it isn't particularly meaningful. It's clear to me that they were just looking for a launching point to complain about capitalism and didn't really care where that came from.
- peterbecich 11mo agoThe OP is claiming the country should re-align its priorities to optimize this health-insured number, not claiming the gov does not already track this number.
- sys32768 11mo agoMy partner doesn't even have health insurance. My deductible is $8300, but at least it's 100% coverage once I hit that.
- guywithahat 11mo ago[flagged]
- throwforfeds 11mo agoWell, people who aren't citizens still use the healthcare system, regardless if they have insurance or not. All those undocumented kids aren't just not getting sick -- they'll end up using the ER as primary care, clogging up the system, just like everyone else that doesn't have insurance.
- hcurtiss 11mo ago[flagged]
- jedberg 11mo ago> Given there are something like 20 million people in the US illegally You should probably check your sources on that one. That number is highly suspect and came from someone who was trying to sell you on upping budgets for ICE. > seems counter productive to count people who aren't citizens in a article primarily about US health statistics. Non-citizens are still people.
- orochimaaru 11mo agoYou’ll probably get downvoted here for mentioning this. But I am with you. I think we need to get out of this bad mix of insurance and health care being a crisis. But for that to happen, state benefits need to be locked down iron-clad to only us citizens. Not to your general tax payer base but only to US citizens and that includes ACA subsidies. States subsidies should be included in “government assistance” that makes beneficiaries ineligible for citizenship and permanent residency. That is a problem that shouldn’t need a big discussion to solve in Congress. But given the current political scenarios it won’t.
- close04 11mo agoSomeone exhausted the concern for children on other topics like identifying people on the web (so children don't watch porn), scanning the content of people's devices and communications (so children are safe from predators), etc. They reached the bottom of the barrel just when it came to making sure children can get treatment when sick.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo agoMedicare should cover prenatal, neonatal and pediatric care for all American children. Frame it as a pro-birther initiative. And sure, give parents a total opt out when it comes to vaccination. Just because they're dumbfucks doesn't mean their kid need run a fever into brain-cooking temperatures out of fear of an ER bill.
- jalapenog 11mo ago[dead]
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> Medicaid already does that The article says "many uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid," but it doesn't say all. Do you know what constitutes the gap? My issue with expanding Medicaid is it's run by the states. That limits the opportunities for cost and messaging savings.
- bombcar 11mo agoSome of the gap may be illegal/undocumented children. Some of it is families in the gap where they can't get employment that pays fully for family healthcare, but make too much to qualify for CHIP/Medicaid. Some will have been disqualified for other reasons, perhaps.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> Some of the gap may be illegal/undocumented children Do we know what fraction? If most American children have access to healthcare–a claim I'm sceptical of–then I'm not seeing an urgent problem that has to be solved by the healthcare system.
- bombcar 11mo agoTo be precise "have no health insurance" and "have access to healthcare" are not two sides of the same coin. Everyone in the USA has access to emergency care and stabilization, the practical results of which are that for emergencies, you get helped, payment is worked out later. If you have no problem with having no intention of paying, the system absorbs the cost.
- kittikitti 11mo agoI know a real case where a child was in the intensive care unit and had their health insurance dropped because their parent missed a few days to be with them. The health insurance situation in the US is terrifying and heartbreaking.
- peterbecich 11mo agoTerrible. COBRA would have been best option in this situation, I think. By law, (for a steep COBRA fee) no one is supposed to lose their insurance on such short notice.
- freedomben 11mo agoCOBRA lets you pay the full premium to continue. If your company has been covering 80% or more, the premiums alone will be insane. Also this comes at a time when you just lost your job...
- peterbecich 11mo agoI realize COBRA is the full premium. My claim is that, if company coverage is lost in the middle of an expensive treatment, COBRA is more affordable than the out-of-pocket cost. COBRA is older than ACA. Special enrollment in ACA under the job loss enrollment period exemption may be a better option than COBRA.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoYour claim is that if they are independently wealthy, OR are willing to forego food and housing, COBRA will save them from unexpected healthcare costs.
- peterbecich 11mo agoI did not claim it would save from unexpected costs. The full premium is an unexpected cost. I claimed COBRA is more affordable than out-of-pocket healthcare if you are in the middle of an expensive treatment at the moment you lose employer coverage. Jumping onto ACA via unemployment exemption or Medicaid could require a transfer to a different doctor, etc. in the middle of treatment.
- chaostheory 11mo agoGiven the age population bomb, we should reduce elderly socialized benefits and offer them to children instead. We can’t afford both.
- bpt3 11mo agoWe can afford both, because we already pay for the elderly and children are extremely inexpensive to insure overall.
- bombcar 11mo ago> children are extremely inexpensive to insure overall This is the key - to cover the insane costs for elderly, insurance companies have had to raise costs on the healthy, which includes children.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoYes, but most of the wealthy are elderly and few are children.
- toomuchtodo 11mo agoCitation: 31% of Wealth Owned by People Over 70 - https://www.apolloacademy.com/31-percent-of-wealth-owned-by-people-over-70/ https://www.apolloacademy.com/31-percent-of-wealth-owned-by-... - December 7th, 2025
- toomuchtodo 11mo agoWe cannot afford both, the elderly are too expensive current state. 1/4th of Medicare spending is someone's last year of life. So, life expectancy has ballooned spending on the elderly while not paying for child healthcare. Medicare’s Real Fiscal Crisis Is Much Worse than Trust Fund Insolvency - https://www.cato.org/blog/medicares-real-fiscal-crisis-much-worse-trust-fund-insolvency https://www.cato.org/blog/medicares-real-fiscal-crisis-much-... - October 8th, 2025 ("Medicare isn’t just facing a trust fund shortfall—it’s threatening America’s entire fiscal future. While headlines warn that the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund2 will run out in 2033, the real danger comes from a different part of the program: Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI). SMI refers to Medicare spending by Part B (doctors’ visits and outpatient services) and Part D (prescription drugs). Unlike the HI fund, SMI is set up to take whatever it needs from taxpayers—no limits, no debate. In 2024 alone, Medicare Parts B and D financed under SMI added $498 billion straight onto the national credit card. Unless Congress makes fundamental reforms to Medicare, federal healthcare spending will drive the US toward a catastrophic fiscal crisis.") Medicare Spending at the End of Life: A Snapshot of Beneficiaries Who Died in 2014 and the Cost of Their Care - https://www.kff.org/medicare/medicare-spending-at-the-end-of-life/ https://www.kff.org/medicare/medicare-spending-at-the-end-of... - July 14th, 2016 ("Of the 2.6 million people who died in the U.S. in 2014, 2.1 million, or eight out of 10, were people on Medicare, making Medicare the largest insurer of medical care provided at the end of life. Spending on Medicare beneficiaries in their last year of life accounts for about 25% of total Medicare spending on beneficiaries age 65 or older. The fact that a disproportionate share of Medicare spending goes to beneficiaries at the end of life is not surprising given that many have serious illnesses or multiple chronic conditions and often use costly services, including inpatient hospitalizations, post-acute care, and hospice, in the year leading up to their death.")
- rayiner 11mo agoThe Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has covered health insurance for children in middle-income families since 1997: https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2017/08/03/what-every-policy-maker-needs-to-know-about-the-childrens-health-insurance-program-chip-a-refresher https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2017/08/03/what-every-policy-make.... CHIP eligibility ranges from 175% of the federal poverty line in Wyoming to 405%. So how are their children who don't have coverage?
- SoftTalker 11mo agoIDRTA but they probably are in family situations where the parents are borderline or actually incompetent. They just don't sign up, or aren't aware that it's available, when they need care they go to the ER and don't pay anyway so why do more than that?
- bombcar 11mo agoThis is the reality (and the system actually handles this "relatively" well, all things considered). There's a reason that if you dip your toe into ANY of the various support things, they ALL immediately apply for you. (Kids in general and for the large part are pretty healthy, the numbers of "major health issues" that aren't broken bones/scrapes/flu are pretty small overall. So if you're poor/don't care, you just roll the dice. 999/1000 it's going to come out ahead for you.)
- giantg2 11mo agoDoes CHIP include children without paperwork?
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- azalemeth 11mo agoEveryone is born and at some point will die. The costs associated with this vary hugely but the certainty of those two end points are inescapable. Almost every other developed country in the world recognises that and shares both the risks and the costs recognising that health is a golden crown worn by (and invisible to) those who have it. As someone with a spinal injury who would be most likely bankrupt and unemployed in the US I just don't understand why you don't get a proper, profit-free healthcare system. You spend the most on it in the world and don't get the greatest outcomes!
- bpt3 11mo agoI don't disagree with anything you said, but the simple answer to your question is that most American households are happy with their current health insurance and don't want it to change, so we keep patching the current (severely flawed) system as "needed" rather than starting over with a new one or making what would be seen as radical changes. --- Edit --- For the kneejerk downvoters who seem very confused, this was released yesterday: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5650010-survey-aca-coverage-satisfaction/ https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5650010-survey-aca-cov... This has been an issue for decades now, with countless polls to back it up.
- colinbartlett 11mo agoCitation needed.
- bpt3 11mo agoFrom yesterday, after a 2 second google search: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5650010-survey-aca-coverage-satisfaction/ https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5650010-survey-aca-cov... Feel free to look at the many, many, many alternative polls over the years. This is well known to anyone who has done any research into the topic at all.
- toomuchtodo 11mo agoTake the poll in 2026 after ACA subsides evaporate and Medicaid cuts. Highest satisfaction is for government run insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare). https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-are-satisfied-health-insurance-quarter-report-denials-delays-rcna248908 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-are-sati... ("Overall, 82% of Americans said they’re satisfied with their health care coverage, including a third who said they are very satisfied with their current coverage. The group that reported being the most satisfied were older adults, with 9 in 10 Americans over 65 years old saying they were satisfied. And 42% in that age group reported being “very satisfied.”. Roughly 9 in 10 of those who have public health insurance coverage through Medicare or Medicaid also reported being satisfied with coverage, compared to 77% of those with private health care coverage.") https://www.kff.org/medicare/overall-satisfaction-with-medicare-is-high-but-beneficiaries-under-age-65-with-disabilities-experience-more-insurance-problems-than-older-beneficiaries/ https://www.kff.org/medicare/overall-satisfaction-with-medic... https://www.citizen.org/article/public-support-for-medicare-for-all/ https://www.citizen.org/article/public-support-for-medicare-... ("Support for Medicare-for-All continues to rise, whether in Congress, state legislatures, or among the American people. Recent polls indicate that six in ten Americans support Medicare-for-All. In addition, more than 60 percent believe that government is responsible for ensuring health coverage for all Americans. And nearly 70 percent of all voters, including battleground voters, identify health care as an important issue in upcoming elections.") My comment with citations from six years ago showing the trend holds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22550774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22550774 (March 11th, 2020) Americans With Government Health Plans Most Satisfied - https://news.gallup.com/poll/186527/americans-government-health-plans-satisfied.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/186527/americans-government-hea... - November 6th, 2015
- techdmn 11mo agoIf only there was a party on the ballot that supported universal healthcare. (I know there are third-parties that do, but they are pretty effectively excluded from the process.)
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> If only there was a party on the ballot that supported universal healthcare There are plenty of advocacy groups for universal healthcare. You could join them. You could also support electeds pressing for this, and call your elected to make it known it's a priority. Civic engagement doesn't start and end at the ballot box.
- acuozzo 11mo agoI don't understand why calls to "Protect the children!" don't include health insurance.
- bombcar 11mo agoBecause the US already has CHIP and various other programs that mean the vast majority of children DO have healthcare, if they need it. It's just not a real pressing problem for most people, because either they're covered by CHIP or similar, or covered by work, or just don't care.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoYeah, all my friends who struggle without their desperately needed medications "just don't care".
- IAmBroom 11mo agoBecause of course it's not genuine. It's always a smokescreen for policing morality.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- PearlRiver 11mo agoAmusingly there is another conversation on HN were Americans pat themselves on the back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46287251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46287251 In my country healthcare for under 18 is free. Just putting it out there.
- HardwareLust 11mo agoWhy is this flagged?
- baden1927 11mo agoIdentifying marine life species, the biota in 0.01% of saltwater accounts for 230,000 varieties, specifying RNA/DNA sequences that accord to CRISPR gene therapy. [1]:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-census-catalogues-the-worlds-marine-species/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-census-catalogu...