For parents, losing employer-based health insurance means their children could be uninsured for long periods of time, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported.
Among an estimated 3 million children whose parents lose employer-based insurance annually, 75% subsequently become uninsured, and almost a million remain uninsured for a year or longer.
Theoretically, families have options when this happens, such as COBRA, individually purchased private insurance, or enrollment in Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
“But the reality is that COBRA and private coverage are mostly unaffordable to low- and moderate-income families,” and parents may not know about Medicaid and SCHIP or face enrollment barriers, such as cumbersome applications and waiting periods, according to the AAP.
Among those children who become uninsured, only one in eight will enroll in public programs, whereas 1 in 30 will obtain nonemployer-based private coverage. The results were based on more than 18,000 records of children obtained from Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data, from 1996 to 2001.