Health insurance coverage

Iowa's rate of uninsured children is half that of the United States as a whole. Six percent of children in Iowa were without health insurance at the time of the survey compared to 12% nationally.[8] This translates into about 43,000 Iowa children without health insurance. Another six percent of children had been uninsured at some point in the previous year. The parents of one-third of Iowa's children (33%) worried about their ability to pay for their child's health care in the past year, and almost one in ten (9%) worried about it "a great deal."

Eight of ten insured children received their health insurance through an employer-sponsored plan. Seven percent were insured through a personal policy while Medicaid covered 10 percent. One percent were covered by the Healthy and Well Kids in Iowa (HAWK-I) program, part of the Iowa State Child Health Insurance Program. Twenty percent of the children not in the Medicaid program (people who were either uninsured or had other insurance) had been covered by Medicaid at some point in their lives. About one-third (31%) of children's health insurance coverage was rated as excellent, about another one-third (35%) was rated as very good, and 10 percent was rated as fair (8%) or poor (2%). Just over one in ten (11%) children lived in a household where the parent was uninsured. Nine out of ten (89%) children lived in a household where the parent was covered by the same health insurance plan as they were. Almost half of the children's parents (45%) had heard about HAWK-I.

---