Health insurance is the key to a healthy childhood because it provides access to needed health care. Insured children are more likely to have a regular family doctor who understands the child’s health history and offers preventative care.
They miss fewer days from school and their parents miss less time from work. Investing in children’s health yields other benefits including improved social and emotional development, better long-term health, and fewer trips the emergency room resulting in a long-term health care savings.
ALL Kids in Alabama provides low-income children, whose families are ineligible to receive Medicaid, with access to affordable coverage. Alabama’s program, currently covers over 70,000 children throughout the state whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but can’t afford health insurance.
Many of these children have parents who work several part-time jobs and have no health benefits. Others are without health insurance temporarily due to job change or divorce.
Because of ALL Kids and other health insurance programs in the state, Alabama has one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the country, with over 90 percent of children covered.
The national child uninsured rate is currently 11.7% but in Alabama fewer than 7.7% of children are uninsured, well under the national average.
Learn more
All Kids, Alabama Department of Public Health
Health Insurance for Children
American Academy of Pediatrics Alabama Chapter