Health insurance coverage.

Unlike children in most other economically developed countries, children in the United States are not guaranteed health insurance coverage. Indeed, many U.S. children have no health insurance coverage at all. Their lack of coverage restricts their access to health care services: uninsured children have fewer physician visits per year than children with insurance and are less likely to have a usual source of routine health care.1 In recognition of the importance of health insurance for children’s access to health care, a number of public programs, the largest of which is the federal-state Medicaid program, have been developed to provide health insurance benefits to poor children and others who would not otherwise have access to health care coverage. Indeed, health insurance coverage for all Americans was a key element of the recent effort to reform health care in the United States.2