Three-Quarters of Uninsured Mothers Live in Low-Income Families, Study Finds

Nearly one out of every three women in families with incomes below 200% of the poverty level, or $29,260 for a family of three, is uninsured, representing three-quarters of all uninsured mothers in the U.S., according to report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In 1999, 5.9 million women with young or school-aged children lacked health coverage, the report says. Low-income women are nearly five times more likely to lack coverage than their higher-income counterparts. And the number of uninsured, low-income mothers appears to be increasing -- between 1995 and 1999, the percentage of such women without insurance increased from 29.2% to 32.3%. These women generally lack access to affordable employer-based coverage and make too much money to qualify for Medicaid (Guyer et al., "Millions of Mothers Lack Health Insurance Coverage," 5/10). Report co-author Jocelyn Guyer said, "There's a gap. It's very hard to qualify for health care in most states unless you are poor enough to qualify for welfare" (McQueen, AP/Spokane Spokesman-Review, 5/11). Betsy Nowland-Curry, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on Women, added, "Health insurance is a huge impediment. It's a problem whether you're single or in a double-income family. I've heard personally from women who have good jobs and no health insurance" (Richardson, Lexington Herald-Leader, 5/11). The report says that because these women lack coverage they are "at high risk of going without the preventive and primary care they need, including routine pap smears and mammograms." A few states, particularly those that have a "stronger tax base," have opened their Children's Health Insurance Programs to parents of enrolled children. But the report says that unless the federal government encourages states to cover low-income working parents, it is likely that lower-income mothers will continue to lack coverage. "It is particularly important in the current fiscal environment for the federal government to provide states with enhanced fiscal incentives to expand coverage to parents," the report states, noting that the "most promising" proposal is the bipartisan legislation known as FamilyCare. That proposal would "substantially increase" CHIP program funding and allow states to cover parents of children in Medicaid and CHIP programs. The report surmises that giving states "new fiscal incentives to expand coverage on a family basis ... could ease disparities across states and help fill the gaping hole in coverage that exists for low-income working mothers" (Guyer et al., "Millions of Mothers Lack Health Insurance Coverage," 5/10). For a copy of the report, click here.