BY BENJAMIN J. HULAC
NJ Spotlight
Every child born in America would be enrolled in national health care and receive insurance through a federal system until age 26 under new legislation from U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, a member of the senate health committee.
The plan that Kim and his staff call MediKids would be drawn from programs that exist within Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would carry out the initiative, if the bill as written becomes law.
“What MediKids does is provide a guarantee that all kids will be covered,” Kim said in a sit-down interview with reporters on July 16. “I think that this could be revolutionary.”
He called his proposal a “bookend” to Medicare, which covers American seniors.
“This could be a massive, massive step forward in fixing our broken health-care system and saving families a lot of money.”
Of roughly 27 million Americans without health insurance, about 4.7 million are children, federal data show. Another 23 million are underinsured or do not have sufficient coverage for their needs, facts that Kim said should be “unacceptable for everybody.”
The bill contains no citizenship requirements, meaning undocumented children and young adults would be eligible.
“This would be the main backstop for every child in the country, from birth to 26,” Kim added.
A national security and military adviser during the Obama administration, health policies have been running themes in Kim’s political career.
“I originally ran for Congress because I had a child who had a preexisting condition,” he recounted, “a health-care problem back in 2017 when he was born, and my congressman at the time was leading the charge on gutting pre-existing condition protections.”
Those protections were enshrined in the Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – created in 2010.
“That’s my origin story,” Kim related. “I would not be here in Congress had it not been for that experience of being a parent worried about my kid being able to get health care.”
Sen. Cory Booker is a co-sponsor of Kim’s proposed bill, as are senators Alex Padilla of California and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, both Democrats.
The bill has not received an official cost estimate or “score” from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which provides analyses of bills upon request, but it has been endorsed by national medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses.
Wealthier families could opt out of the coverage if they want to buy health insurance elsewhere.
“It gets rid of any of that anxiety,” Kim said, referring to parents mulling medical choices for their children. “MediKids has no cracks.”
Medicaid enrollment in New Jersey last year dropped by about 28,000, or 1.7%, according to the Center for Children and Families, a nonpartisan research center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Experts predict the decline of national health coverage will accelerate as deep cuts from a Republican budget law go into effect next year. That law – known as the Big, Beautiful Bill – will cost the state about $500 million in lost revenue, state treasurer Aaron Binder told lawmakers in Trenton.
