Families USA says welfare reform stripped 675,000 people of their Medicaid coverage

Using "Census Bureau Current Population Study" data, Families USA in Washington, DC, says some 675,000 people — 62% of them children — lost Medicaid coverage and became uninsured by 1997 due to welfare reform. Most of the children were, in all likelihood, still eligible for coverage under Medicaid, the advocacy group says.

The survey found that:

- Children under age 19 were the majority of those who became uninsured as a result of welfare reform.

- More than half of both children and adults who would have been enrolled in Medicaid if there were no welfare reform were instead uninsured in 1997.

- Poor people are more likely than those just above the poverty line to become uninsured as a result of welfare reform.

- Minority children are more likely to become uninsured as a result of welfare reform than are white children.

- The number of people becoming uninsured as a result of welfare reform is likely to increase considerably in the years following 1997.