Behind the Data: What Our 2025 KIDS Count Project Reveals about Kansas Children’s Health
Olivia Sourivong | March 5, 2026
Our 2025 KIDS COUNT County Fact Sheets show both the successes and struggles of Kansas children and families. In a time when we are seeing families’ budgets straining to meet their basic needs, our project detailing key data in each of Kansas’ 105 counties becomes more crucial than ever to drive policy solutions.
As we reviewed the most recent data among all Kansas counties, we saw a significant decrease in children enrolled in Medicaid, while there was also an increase in children enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
While both programs are part of KanCare (which connects eligible Kansans with health coverage), there are differences, most notably in program eligibility. Children who aren’t eligible for Medicaid due to their family making too much may then qualify for CHIP, which offers families a more affordable insurance copayment.
In Kansas from 2023 to 2025, there was a 29,396 decrease in the number of children enrolled in Medicaid. In the map below, the counties that experienced the largest decreases in children enrolled in Medicaid were Allen, Wichita, Elk, and Rawlins.
Alternatively, Mitchell, Lane, Greenwood, and Hodgeman counties saw the greatest increases in children enrolled in CHIP.
Why the Consistent Change in Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment Across Kansas?
A closer look at the data shows that Medicaid enrollment declined in 102 counties, while CHIP enrollment increased in 98 counties. While the reason behind Kansas’s dramatic decline in children enrolled in Medicaid remains unclear, one possibility is that families could be transitioning from Medicaid coverage to CHIP or even switching to private insurers.
Regardless, 7 out of 100 Kansas children (51,000 total uninsured children) still went uninsured in 2024. Median family income in Kansas increased from 2023 to 2024, which could explain the apparent shift from Medicaid to CHIP in the child population, but the number of children going without insurance jumped over the same period.
One reason for this change could be due to Medicaid eligibility redeterminations starting back up after the pandemic ended. In the spring of 2023, when the federal government ended the public health emergency due to the pandemic, all states again began reviewing enrollees’ eligibility on a yearly basis. From March 2020 to March 2023, children and families were allowed to stay enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP without needing to undergo the typical annual review process. As the annual reviews began again in 2023 (known as the public health emergency “unwinding”), families began to “churn” off and on Medicaid coverage, which is when individuals temporarily lose and then regain coverage within the same year.
This commonly occurs for two primary reasons: fluctuations in household income and administrative barriers during the Medicaid renewal process. These barriers include not receiving a renewal notice, having a difficult time understanding the notice, or failing to submit required paperwork within the designated timeframe.
Although the unwinding may not fully explain the high number of uninsured children in 2024, it is likely a significant contributing factor. Without prompt follow-up after disenrollment, some parents may not have realized that their child could still be eligible and re-enrolled for Kansas Medicaid and/or CHIP.
Another reason that Medicaid, CHIP, and uninsured numbers might have shifted so significantly from 2023 to 2025 is that some parents might not have been aware that their children remained eligible for coverage even if they, the parents, were deemed ineligible. This is because children have much higher income eligibility levels than adults do. For instance, children can qualify for Medicaid or CHIP coverage up to 250% of the federal poverty level (FPL), whereas, in Kansas, parents and caregivers qualify for Medicaid at only 38% FPL.
With these differences in eligibility thresholds for adults versus children, parents can lose Medicaid eligibility much sooner and may not realize that their child could remain eligible for Medicaid or CHIP coverage.
Disaggregated Data of Uninsured Kansas Kids
In Kansas’ larger counties, thousands of children remain uninsured – and taking a closer look reveals significant differences in affected populations. About 10.2% of Black children and 15.4% of Hispanic children remain without health care coverage. By contrast, 4.3% of white, non-Hispanic children are uninsured, which is below the statewide average of 5.4%.
Black children are twice as likely – and Hispanic children are more than three times as likely – to be uninsured than their white peers. As long as these disparities in Kansas’ health care system remain unaddressed, hundreds, if not thousands, of children of color each year will be harmed by a lack of access to critical health coverage needed for doctor visits, prescriptions, therapies, and more.
What the Data Means for Kansas Kids
The KIDS COUNT data shared exemplifies the need to continue advocating for Kansas children to have better access to affordable health care. As Kansas families continue to bear the brunt of rising costs on housing, energy, and overall cost-of-living expenses, more Kansans will be priced out of accessible health care. More must be done to support the current systems in place so all children – regardless of income, zip code, race, or ability – have the opportunity to grow up healthy and thrive.
For many of the health indicators shared, policy solutions exist to close most health care gaps affecting children and families. That is what our KIDS COUNT data is meant to do: inform and drive meaningful and sensible policy solutions. When we prioritize the health needs of children first, we’re not just improving the well-being of all kids, but also establishing a foundation for future Kansas generations.
About the KIDS COUNT Project
The KIDS COUNT project is a collaborative effort with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to highlight how Kansas is measuring as it relates to the well-being of children, including health, economic security, and education indicators. (Though all analysis in KAC’s KIDS COUNT Project does not necessarily represent the opinions of the Foundation.)
Comprehensive fact sheets for each Kansas county exploring the most recent available data are available on our website here.
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