Facts on Uninsured Children

Who are these children?

• More than 90% of them have one or more parents who work. 2
• 60% live in two-parent families.
• 70% have incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level (1997). 3
• They make up 70% of all newly uninsured Americans (1996), while the number of children without private insurance grows by roughly 3,000 every day. 4

Employer-based health insurance is bad for children because, as insurance costs rise, businesses cut their coverage of employee children.

• In 1980, the majority of employers at medium-to-large companies paid 100% of employee family health insurance costs. 5 Today, less than one-quarter do. 6
• One in four workers today has no access to employment-based family health coverage, at any price. 8

Uninsured children are at risk of preventable illness.

• Most uninsured children with asthma never see a doctor during the year. 9
• Many are hospitalized for acute asthma attacks that could have been prevented.

Investing in children's health coverage saves taxpayer dollars.

• One in four uninsured children either uses the hospital emergency room as a regular source of health care or has no regular source of care. 10
• The state of Florida found that when parents were helped to buy coverage for uninsured children, children received health care in doctors' offices rather ERs. ER visits dropped by 70% in areas of the state served by the new program, saving the state's taxpayers and consumers $13 million in 1996. 11

Children with untreated illness often cannot keep up in school.

• The state of Florida also found that uninsured children are 25% more likely to miss school. 12
• One Pennsylvania insurer found that nearly one in five uninsured children had untreated vision problems, and children unable to see the blackboard often fall behind in school. 13

1. Bureau of the Census, March 1999 Current Population Survey.
2. Bureau of the Census, March 1997 Current Population Survey.
3. Bureau of the Census, March 1990 and March 1997 Current Population Surveys.
4. Bureau of the Census, March 1997 Current Population Survey.
5. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/sahome.html, Employee Benefits Survey, Percent of Employees With Medical Care Required to Contribute Toward Cost of Family Coverage, Medium and Large Private Sector Establishments, 1980.
6. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Benefits in Medium and Large Private Establishment [sic], 1993. (1994, November) Bulletin 2456.
7. Jensen et al. (1997).The New Dominance of Managed Care: Insurance Trends in the 1990s (pp. 130-131). Health Affairs, 16.
8. General Accounting Office. (1997, Feb.). Employment-Based Health Insurance: Costs Increase and Family Coverage Decreases, GAO/HEHS-97-35.
9. Newacheck, P.W., et al. (1996). "Children's access to primary care: Difference by race, income, and insurance status," Pediatrics, 97, 26-32. Based on data from National Medical Expenditure Survey 1987.
10. Simpson, G., et al. (1997). Access to Health Care. Part 1: Children. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Statistics, 10, 196.
11. Florida Healthy Kids Corporation (1997, Feb.) Healthy Kids Annual Report.
12. Supra.
13. Caring Foundation for Children. (1997). An Impact Study of the Caring Program for Children and BlueCHIP of Pennsylvania.