(Radio Iowa) – The State of Iowa ranks ninth in the annual assessment from a national non-profit focused on child well being. Today’s KIDS Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation mainly compares data from 2022 and 2023. It found no change in the number of Iowa children covered by health insurance. Anne Discher is executive director of Common Good Iowa, the group that releases the KIDS Count report card for Iowa.

“Iowa, over many years, has made many policy choices to really maximize coverage for kids, that’s within our Medicaid program, it’s within our (Children’s Health Insurance Program),” Discher says, “and that’s a reason why we see such a high ranking.” However, there was a significant increase in the number of 4th graders who weren’t proficient readers and among 8th graders who could not do math at a junior high level. Discher says of all the assessments in the report, the education ratings really stick out.

“Every year this report reminds me that in, like, 2004 it was Iowa’s turn to choose an image to put on the back of the state quarter and Iowa chose, of all the things it could have chosen, to put a one room schoolhouse with the words, ‘Foundation in Education,’ on the back of the quarter,” Discher says, “so when I see a 20th rank overall in education, I do wonder about how well we’re living up to that ideal.” The report found a one percent increase in the number of Iowa children living in poverty.

Graphic courtesy of Annie E. Casey Foundation

“It is up in Iowa,” Discher says. “It has decreased a little bit in the U.S. as a whole.” There was a surprising health measure in the report — a slight drop in the number of Iowa kids between the ages of 10 and 17 who are considered obese. Discher notes it was a one percent decline. “What we’ll want to be watching is to see: Does that trend continue,” Discher says. “One of the indicators actually where Iowa tends to definitely not be a leader….so it’s definitely an indicator that it would be great to see some improvement on.”

And Discher is concerned the state’s history of having a large share of children covered by health insurance may dip in the future. “Not to borrow trouble from the future,” Discher says, “but it is one of those that I worry given the conversations at the federal level right now that would make big cuts to Medicaid in particular, but also to the ACA marketplace.”

Tax credits that reduce monthly premiums for people who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace are set to expire on December 31st. The “big beautiful bill” that passed the House does not extend those tax credits.