Health insurance and child support

This DataWatch examines the extent of the child support system's increasing efforts to require nonresident parents to provide health insurance for their children. More than half of children who have public insurance only and more than one-fourth of uninsured children live in families that could be affected by the child support system. Nonresident fathers now provide insurance to only 15 percent of children living with their mother. More than one-third of such children have public insurance only. Thus, if the child support system could ensure children's coverage through nonresident fathers, taxpayer spending on public insurance could decrease.