As a pediatrician, I often have the honor of celebrating birthdays with children and their families when they come in for yearly check-ups, a time to celebrate milestones while ensuring children are up-to-date on care. But recently, I’ve had to share with some parents the heartbreaking news that, in Connecticut, a certain birthday milestone — the sweet 16 — is now much less of a celebration.
For children without documentation status in Connecticut, 16 is the age at which they are no longer eligible to obtain health insurance.
Amid a sea of advocacy and support for health coverage for all children, Connecticut has recently passed incremental legislation to expand HUSKY (state public health insurance) eligibility for all children regardless of documentation status. Right now, only children up to and including age 12 can enroll, and starting July 1, children aged 15 and under will be covered.
[RELATED: CT House passes expansion of HUSKY for immigrant children]
Connecticut has been leading the way in improving health for children. Since the start of 2023, when expansion through age 12 went into effect, I have seen firsthand the relief on parents’ faces when they learn that their children are now eligible for HUSKY. We applaud our state leaders for helping to ensure health care for so many of our state’s youngest, but it is time to ensure all children have coverage.
The halls of our state’s Capitol held space for hundreds of our neighbors to bravely share their testimonies about how important this legislation is to them. We heard tearful stories of children missing essential health visits, only arriving for care when it was too late, or enduring stress from being unable to obtain needed preventive or urgent care — all known consequences of uninsurance.
[RELATED: CT advocates rally for further expansion of HUSKY for immigrants]
Those consequences don’t end for children once they turn 16. At age 16, there are no special changes, no sudden improvements to health. In fact, the teenage years are when peer pressures, complex body awareness concerns, and academic challenges emerge that require medical care and intervention so that children can thrive.
In addition to this, we are presently in the midst of a child mental health crisis, for which the Surgeon General has declared an emergency advisory. Yet, for the many undocumented children without insurance who have already faced significant trauma, serious problems may only come to medical attention when it’s too late. That results in costly, and sometimes dangerous, consequences that should have been preventable —from unnecessary hospitalizations to permanent disability to even death.
Parents and families should not have to tell their medical stories to a public hearing. Instead, they should be able to share those with the doctors and health care professionals that they currently are having such difficulty accessing. Hundreds of doctors and medical providers agree and have signed letters supporting legislation expanding coverage, but our expertise was not recognized when so many children were left out.
While cost is often questioned, covering all children will only be a small fraction of the Connecticut Medicaid budget — an upfront investment with long-term benefit. Connecticut’s legislators should fund HUSKY eligibility for all children in our state this legislative session. We can join our neighbors, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, that have passed legislation to cover all children in the prior two years, as well as the six states and Washington, DC, that already provide undocumented children the health care they need through at least age 18. Connecticut is poised to lead the way with brave and decisive action to ensure all children — including those 16 years old and older — have access to HUSKY.
It’s time to care for all the children in our state, not just the youngest, not only for the benefit of Connecticut’s children and families, but also for the health and wellbeing of our state and its future.
Dr. Julia Rosenberg is a New Haven pediatrician and a Public Voices fellow at Yale University.