Many children without health insurance go without care all year.

Uninsured children in families earning between approximately $38,000 and $76,000 a year are about as likely to go without any health care as uninsured children in poorer families. The study, by Laura Shone, an assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, dispels the myth that the uninsured middle class are simply paying for their children to receive health care. The study is published in Journal of the American Medical Association.

“There’s a great need for health care coverage for children and it’s not isolated to the poor. It’s moving up the income scale,” Shone said. “This study shows that a large percentage of both lower-income and middle class children who are uninsured don’t receive any care at all. We need to be aware that these children need help, too, as we make more coverage options available, especially in this difficult economy.”

Nearly half of uninsured children in the U.S. went without any medical care or prescriptions during the year they had no insurance. An even larger percentage of uninsured children went without preventive care.

Overall, almost 3 million uninsured U.S. children had no medical care of any kind and no prescription use for a full year, according to an analysis of nationally representative data from the 2004 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Of those, about 1.6 million children already qualify for public coverage but are not enrolled, and about 1 million more could gain coverage through expansion of the state children’s health insurance program (SCHIP).

Source
Journal of the American Medical