MONDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who had private
health insurance before enrolling in a U.S. government children's
health insurance program called SCHIP still had unmet health-care
needs, according to new research.
A waiting period to qualify for the State Children's Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP), a federally funded program offering
health insurance to low-income children not eligible for Medicaid
and without private coverage, doesn't address chronic health
conditions such as asthma, the study by the University of Rochester
Medical Center finds.
Thirty-five states require uninsured children to go without
insurance for a period of time before they can enroll in SCHIP. The
waiting period deters a situation called crowd-out, which can
happen if patients switch to SCHIP when they could choose private
insurance.
"First of all, we've found that few families switch their
children to SCHIP when they have the option of private health
insurance... in fact, only 7 percent do," study author Laura Shone,
an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester
Medical Center, said in a prepared statement.
"Second, those who do switch have the same unmet health-care
needs as those who didn't have insurance when they enrolled," Shone
concluded.
Her team's findings are based on research done on New York's
Child Health Plus SCHIP plan. Child Health Plus has never
instituted a waiting period, giving researchers an opportunity to
study the patients who switch from private insurance.
The study was scheduled to be presented Monday at the Pediatric
Academic Societies meeting in Honolulu.
Shone said this study shows that families are not "saving up"
health problems to address after enrollment in SCHIP. About 57
percent of children, both with and without prior insurance, had
unmet health-care needs when enrolling in the program, she said. In
fact, 10 percent who previously had private insurance had asthma
and about 7 percent had some other chronic health condition.
More information
The American College of Emergency Physicians has more about
access to medical care for the uninsured.
