Data released yesterday from the U.S. Census reveals that Washington’s rural children are much more likely to be uninsured than children in urban areas. One in four children in Franklin (30 percent) and Yakima (26.6 percent) counties lacked health insurance in 2008. These are startling figures compared with urban counties like Spokane (4.1 percent) and King (6.4 percent). 

Early learning has getting more attention in Washington, D.C., and this week brought a couple of pieces of good news.

With the Baucus Bill circulating, we felt it was time to take a stand on health reform and coverage for Washington's kids. Here's the first part of a statement we just released:

“We in Washington have done better than average in taking care of the health needs of our children. We were among the first states in the nation to pledge to cover every child by 2010. And we have built a coverage program, Apple Health for Kids, that has delivered comprehensive, affordable coverage to thousands of children who otherwise would have relied on the emergency room for their health care needs.

We expect health reform efforts in Washington, D.C. to support our state’s laudable goals for children’s health care—not work against them. Children must come out of federal health reform better off than they were before, not worse.

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The U.S. Census released its latest insurance numbers this morning, and our colleagues at Washington Kids Count have been busily crunching the numbers for Washington’s kids.