This study compares asthma-related health care visits and drug therapy for rural and nonrural Kentucky children with Medicaid health insurance in 1995. The 8,634 children with asthma had a mean age of 5.7 years. Ninety-two percent made at least one asthma office visit, and 13 percent were hospitalized. The urban and rural patterns of care for childhood asthma varied in some potentially important ways. Urban children were twice as likely as rural children to see an asthma specialist (5 percent vs. 2.5 percent, P < 0.05), 2.7 times as likely to receive asthma care in an emergency department (19 percent vs. 7 percent, P < 0.01) and 1.4 times as likely to receive oral steroids (16 percent vs. 12 percent, P = 0.04). If given inhaled anti-inflammatory medication, rural children were more likely to receive inhaled steroids while urban children were more likely to receive cromoglycates.