While the uninsured rate among Latinos is still higher than that of all other demographic groups in the U.S., Latinos have also gained coverage at a greater rate than any other group since the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Indeed, new research affirms the disproportionate impact PPACA has had on Latino children.
Before the law's implementation, 11.5 percent of Latinos under the age of 18 lacked insurance, according to a report by the Georgetown Health Policy Institute in conjunction with La Raza, a Latino advocacy group.
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By the end of 2014, the first full year after PPACA's implementation, the uninsured rate among Hispanic children stood at 9.7.
Overall, the rate of uninsured children dropped from 7.1 percent to 6 percent.
Granted, the uninsured rate among Latino youngsters had been steadily declining in the years before the law's implementation. It stood at 15.8 percent in 2009, with an estimated 2.6 million uninsured Hispanic children.
At the end of 2014, only 1.7 million remained without coverage, compared to 17.9 million who are covered.
"The difference between the uninsured rate for Hispanic children and the uninsured rate for all children has narrowed substantially from 7.2 percentage points in 2009 to 3.7 percentage points in 2014," the report stated.
As is the case with the overall population, states that opted not to accept the (mostly) federally-funded expansion of Medicaid have higher rates of uninsured Latino children than those that took the federal dollars and extended the public health program to families with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
In New York, for instance, only 3.8 percent of Latino children are uninsured. In Texas, 15.8 percent are.
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