Number of Uninsured Children Rises.

Christopher Lee, Washington Post:

For the better part of a decade, fewer and fewer American children have gone without health insurance each year, a trend that diverged sharply from the seemingly inexorable rise in the number of adults without coverage.

No more.

For the first time since 1998, the number of children younger than 18 without health coverage ticked upward last year by 361,000, along with the overall increase in the ranks of the uninsured, according to census figures released last week. Of the nation's nearly 74 million children, about 8.3 million, or 11.2 percent, lacked coverage in 2005, up from 10.8 percent the year before.

The discouraging development surprised some health experts, who attributed the change to budget crunches that led some states to curtail enrollment of children in government-subsidized plans and steady declines in the number of people who receive health insurance through their jobs.

Children without health coverage are three times as likely as insured children to lack a regular doctor, according to a report released last month by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Research from the American College of Physicians in 2000 found that uninsured children were less likely to be up to date on immunizations and to receive treatment for sore throats, earaches and other common childhood illnesses. A University of Texas study found that kids with insurance tend to have fewer school absences.