Children Without Health Insurance

Tuesday, October 3, 2006 Download  RSS  Short URL  Share

A new report on children's health insurance contains a few surprises. One is that Ohio is doing better than most states at providing insurance for children, even though nearly a quarter of a million kids still go uninsured. The report also finds that the children most likely to be without coverage actually aren't the poorest. ideastream's Dan Moulthrop has more.

According to census data analyzed by a national health care consumers advocacy group, slightly more than 8% of Ohio’s children do not have health insurance. The report by Families USA finds that of those 245,000 children, the overwhelming majority - 85% of them - are from working families.

Mary Wachtel is the public policy director of Voices for Children of Greater Cleveland. She says the very poor are usually covered by Medicaid, and the greatest challenges are with families where parents are employed but can’t afford coverage.

Mary Wachtel: We continue to see some challenges in the employer-based insurance market. We know this is one of the biggest costs for employers. That fewer employers are able to offer coverage, and because of the cost, fewer working families are able to buy the coverage.

In Ohio, children qualify for coverage if the family earns less than 200% of the federal poverty level - or $33,200 for a family of three. Dan Moulthrop, 90.3.