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Source: Wall Street Journal

10/13/2010

A new report by the National Committee for Quality Assurance looks at more than 1,000 health plans covering 118 million Americans and reveals a close to four percentage point decrease in 2009 vaccination rates for two-year-olds with private insurance. While immunization rates for six childhood vaccines dipped to 77.7 percent for those on commercial plans, they rose slightly to 74.3 percent for two-year-olds with Medicaid coverage. The report shows that 90.6 percent of children in both groups received the chickenpox vaccine, but 91.2 percent of those on Medicaid and 90.6 percent of those with private insurance received the MMR vaccine. Although children covered by commercial plans had higher vaccination rates against polio, diphtheria/tetanus/whooping cough, and hepatitis B than those on Medicaid, their rates remained the same or decreased.