Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — According to recent census data, Utah has 82,000 children without health insurance. While it is expensive to pay to cover these children, Voices for Utah Children released a report Wednesday that estimates that Utah is actually losing out on $9.6 million by not covering the uninsured children.
An estimated 8.3% of children in Utah do not have health insurance, and the state ranks 46th — among the worst in the country — for rates of uninsured children. The report from the multi-issue child advocacy organization states that children and youth of color and in rural areas are among the most likely to not have health insurance. The number of uninsured Hispanic and Latino children statewide is almost double the state average.
There was a 39% increase in the number of insured children in Utah between 2016 and 2019, which was the third-largest increase in the nation.
"Public debate often focuses on the cost to taxpayers, but what about the cost of not insuring them?" the report posits, though no specific number is provided as to what that cost of insuring the children may be and if it is more or less than the money saved.
When children who are not covered by health insurance require medical treatment, it results in uncompensated care, meaning that the health care providers are never paid for their care. State and local public funds that could be allocated in a different area are instead used to help pay the medical providers for the uncompensated care.
The Voices for Utah Children researchers used past census data and increases in uncompensated care to estimate that each uninsured child adds $385 to the uncompensated care cost annually, meaning that 82,000 children uninsured children would result in a cost of about $32 million annually. The report cites a recent Kaiser study that said that state and local governments cover around 28% of uncompensated care — around $8.8 million in this case.
Along with the costs that taxpayers would be avoiding, the report also states that, after adjusting for demographics, Utah lags behind the average national graduation rate and "children with health insurance are more likely to graduate high school and college, earn higher wages and generate greater amounts of tax revenue for state and local governments."
Applying academic research done by Harvard and Cornell University, the authors of the report estimated that providing health insurance to the 82,000 children who are uninsured would result in an additional 187 high school graduates, 130 high school students choosing to attend college, and 287 college graduates.
Census data shows that further education generally means higher average earnings, and applied here it would result in a greater cumulative personal income of $9,903,545.
Utah has a median-income tax rate of 8.2% for all state and local taxes, which means that covering these children could generate $812,091 in new tax revenue.
The Voices for Utah Children organization did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, but released the following statement:
"We hope state leaders and policymakers will consider these findings as they review proposals to help improve Utah's child uninsured rate. We can, as a state, remove barriers to Medicaid and CHIP. We can adopt policies to help the thousands of Utah children unable to access health insurance.
"These state proposals have costs, but the status quo is costing us even more. Our failure to act is undermining our state's economy and holding back 82,000 children from achieving their full potential. As a state, we can no longer ignore the costs when thousands of children are uninsured and the profound savings when all children have coverage," the statement says.
