WASHINGTON — Every child born in America would be enrolled in national health care and receive insurance through a federal system until age 26 under new legislation from Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat with a seat on the Senate health committee.
The plan that Kim and his staff call MediKids would be drawn from programs that exist within Medicaid, the health insurance for low-income and disabled Americans. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would carry out the initiative, if the bill as written becomes law.
“What MediKids does is provide a guarantee that all kids will be covered,” Kim said in a sit-down interview with reporters Thursday in his Senate office. “I think that this could be revolutionary,” Kim said, calling his proposal a “bookend” to Medicare, which covers American seniors. “This could be a massive, massive step forward in fixing our broken health care system and saving families a lot of money.”
Of roughly 27 million Americans without health insurance, about 4.7 million are children, federal data show. Another 23 million are underinsured or do not have sufficient coverage for their needs — facts that Kim said should be “unacceptable for everybody.”
The bill contains no citizenship requirements, meaning undocumented children and young adults would be eligible.
“This would be the main backstop for every child in the country, from birth to 26,” Kim said.
Personal experience
For Kim, a national security and military adviser during the Obama administration, health policies are running themes in his political career.
He has spoken openly about how the Republican legislative push in the first Trump administration — an effort that former GOP congressman Tom MacArthur helped spearhead in the House — prompted him to run for office. Kim defeated MacArthur in the 2018 mid-terms. After Kim ran for the Senate, Rep. Herb Conaway (D-3rd) won the district.
Kim said: “I originally ran for Congress because I had a child who had a preexisting condition, a health care problem back in 2017 when he was born, and my congressman at the time was leading the charge on gutting pre-existing condition protections” under the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health law often called Obamacare.
“That’s my origin story,” Kim said. “I would not be here in Congress had it not been for that experience of being a parent worried about my kid being able to get health care.”
New Jersey’s senior senator, Cory Booker, is a co-sponsor, as are senators Alex Padilla of California and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, both Democrats.
The bill has not received an official cost estimate or “score” from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which provides analyses of bills upon request.
The bill is endorsed by national medical groups including the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nursesl.
Wealthier families could opt out of the coverage if they want to buy health insurance elsewhere, and they could opt back in, Kim said.
“It gets rid of any of that anxiety,” Kim said of parents’ mulling medical choices for their children. “MediKids has no cracks.”
Medicaid enrollment in New Jersey dropped about 28,000, or 1.7%, last year, according to the Center for Children & Families, a nonpartisan research center at Georgetown University.
Experts predict the decline of national health coverage will accelerate as deep cuts from a Republican budget law come into effect next year. That law will cost New Jersey about $500 million in lost revenue, Aaron Binder, the state treasurer, told lawmakers in Trenton.
In the Thursday interview, Kim held up a printout showing, since January 2025, a drop of more than 2 million people from the national Children’s Health Insurance Program within Medicaid.
“Two million! In just a year and a half!” said Kim, his voice rising. “We’re moving in the wrong direction, and it needs to stop.”
