This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Utah's families, particularly their teenagers, are doing it for themselves. As much as they can. That's the good news out of this year's Kids Count Data Book, the annual study of how children are faring in each of the 50 states.

What's seriously lacking is the part of building a decent society that requires collective — government — action. That means education and health care. Utah has always been remiss in its duties on the former, and its shameful determination to do nothing about the latter shows up as a particularly awful black eye in the rankings put out annually by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The overall rankings put Utah at 10th best in the way our children live and the opportunities available to them. In two of the major categories — family and community and economic well-being — Utah does quite well. We are an honorable eighth in economic well-being and a stunning second in family and community.

Those good scores factor in such things as intact two-parent households, workforce participation and, particularly encouraging, stats on teenage pregnancy, drug use and high school completion. Those are areas of personal responsibility in which Utah, and its teens, do well.

But the big weight pulling our status down is the fact that, as one of the states that continues to refuse to take full advantage of the federal Affordable Care Act and expand Medicaid coverage to many more households, Utah's ranking for providing proper health care services to its children fell from seventh last year to 27th now.

It's not so much that we got worse as that other states got better. A lot better, in many cases. That's because the Obamacare provisions for expanding Medicaid kicked in in many other states but, because the Utah Legislature is scared to death of the prospect of President Obama's signature accomplishment being allowed to accomplish anything for Utahns in need, not here.

This political spitefest means that while the number of uninsured children is falling across the country, it is frozen here. Utah's rate of uninsured children stands at 9.4 percent, while the nation's has declined from 7.1 percent to 6 percent. For Hispanic children, the rate of uninsured in Utah is 23 percent, compared to only 9.7 percent nationally. And for children of families living below the poverty level, the rate of uninsured is 17 percent in Utah, 7 percent nationally.

Meanwhile, the death rate for children has declined almost everywhere, except in Utah, and Utah's youth suicide rate has doubled since 2008.

Combined with new research that shows that Obamacare programs and provisions have bent the health care cost curve down by some $2.6 trillion over five years, and Utah's hurtful refusal to expand Medicaid is revealed, again, for the utter foolishness that it is.