Government funded programs are a very important source of children's health insurance coverage in the United States. The National Health Interview Survey (2019) estimated that about 41% of American children under the age of 18 rely on publicly supported health insurance coverage. Most of this coverage is through the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicaid.
As of September 2020, federal reports indicate that there were about 37.4 million individuals who were either enrolled in CHIP or who were children enrolled in the Medicaid program. The twelve-state Southeast is the region most most dependent on publicly subsidized children's health insurance, both in absolute and relative terms. The 10.7 million children in the Southeast with CHIP or Medicaid Child insurance coverage is the most of any region. Moreover, this accounts for about 28.6% of all U.S. children with CHIP or Medicaid child coverage, which compares to the region's 25.7% share of the U.S. population. No other region of the country has as much dependence, relative to its share of total U.S. population, on publicly supported children's health insurance than does the Southeast. Here is a more detailed breakdown of CHIP and Medicaid child enrollment by region (for state-level details, follow the "region" link) as of 9/30/20:
| Region | (1) CHIP | (2) Medicaid Child | Total Child |
| Far West |
1,569.8 | 5,210.8 | 6,780.6 |
| Great Lakes |
732.5 | 4,304.0 | 5,036.5 |
| Great Plains |
239.3 | 1,873.5 | 2,112.8 |
| MidEast |
1,201.5 | 4,448.0 | 5,649.5 |
| New England |
274.5 | 1,150.6 | 1,425.1 |
| Rocky Mountain |
172.3 | 980.7 | 1,153.0 |
| Southeast |
1,657.1 | 9,015.9 | 10,673.0 |
| Southwest |
872.3 | 3,658.4 | 4,530.7 |
| U.S. | 6,719.1 | 30,641.9 | 37,361.0 |
Source: Medicaid.gov Enrollment Reports as of September, 2020
