Louisiana is a national leader in ensuring that all children have access to health coverage. But coverage doesn’t always ensure that kids and families are getting the care they need to stay healthy.
The federal government uses the Child Core Set to measure the quality of care that kids get through Medicaid and the Louisiana Child Health Insurance Program. A detailed review of this data by LBP’s policy director, Stacey Roussel, paints a mixed picture. While Louisiana is doing better than most states on several quality measures – and has seen rapid improvement in areas such as the timeliness of prenatal care – the state continues to fare poorly on other important indicators of child well-being.
“Louisiana ranks in the top half of many measures, but in the bottom half of several critical ones, such as the percentage of low-weight births,” Roussel said. “It’s an important reminder that we have lots of work to do to make sure that all children have the ability to thrive.”
Roussel’s report, Quality Health Care for Louisiana Kids, compares Louisiana’s rank to the worst, median and best state rates across the five categories.
