The National Profile - Population
Size and Characteristics of Uninsured Children
Access to health care
Uninsured children and families:
- Are less likely to have a usual source of health care
than insured children, and are less likely to have an office-based usual source of care.
- Report more barriers to obtaining needed care.
- Are more likely to report that they are unable to
afford needed care than insured families.
Use and Expenditures
Uninsured children and families:
- Use fewer health care services
than insured children.
- Use fewer well child visits.
- Spend a greater proportion of their income on health care
services than the privately insured (Taylor and Banthin, 1994).
Health Status and Health Outcomes
Health outcomes of uninsured individuals are generally
worse than those who are insured. Uninsured persons are more likely to:
- Experience avoidable hospitalizations.
- Be diagnosed at later stages of disease.
- Be hospitalized on an emergency or urgent basis.
- Be more seriously ill upon hospitalization.
(Source: Office of
Technology Assessment, 1992: Weissman, Gastonis, and Epstein, 1991)
Uninsured children are disproportionately likely to:
- Be 13-17 years old.
- Be Hispanic.
- Live in single-parent families.
- Have parents with little education.
- Live without employed parents.
- Live outside of metropolitan standard areas (MSAs).
Note: These characteristics are not meant to provide a composite of an
uninsured child. Rather, they indicate the demographic categories in which greater
proportions of children are uninsured.
For more detailed information on uninsured
children in the United States. See Weinick, RM, ME Weigers, and JW Cohen. 1998.
"Children's Health Insurance, Access to Care, and Health Status: New Findings." Health Affairs
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