Across the nation, children's health care coverage has held surprisingly steady in the midst of the Great Recession. This is largely due to such federal assistance programs as Medicaid and CHIP, which fund health care for more than one-third of all children nationally and which, at the start of this decade, were responsible for putting a stop to the rapidly rising numbers of young uninsured.
Since 2000, children's health coverage has expanded in 35 states – yet there is still much to be done. In a 2011 study by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that focuses on health care trends and needs, every state showed room for improvement in the area of children's health care.
For bottom-quartile states especially, this year's to-do list runs long. Ranked 47th overall, Florida faces some daunting challenges, chief among which is expanding the scope of coverage: Nearly 18 percent of children in the state are uninsured, and access to care remains limited.
The good: higher marks in preventive care
Brightening up Florida's bleak scorecard were several strengths in the area of prevention, both for infants and older children. This suggests that the state could have a healthier population in upcoming years; pre-emptive measures now may mean that future care is less needed, and thus less costly.
| Percentage | National rank | |
| Children aged 19-35 months who have received key vaccines (2009) | 77.4% | 15 |
| Children with preventive medical care visits (2007) | 91.5% | 12 |
| High school students who currently smoke cigarettes (2009) | 16.1% | 9 |
