Philadelphia Inquirer Looks at Children’s Health Insurance in Pennsylvania
The Philadelphia Inquirer on Aug. 14 looked at the state of children's health insurance in Pennsylvania. A joint survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census found that 95.1% of Pennsylvania children had health insurance coverage in 2000, making it "the most populous state to have managed such success." The study ranked Pennsylvania fifth in percentage of insured children; approximately 877,000 state children are covered by Medicaid or CHIP. An estimated 258,000 children in the state are without health insurance today, down from 331,000 in 1996 and 400,000 in 1992.
'Particularly Progressive'
The Inquirer reports that Pennsylvania's "strong base of employer-provided health insurance" and the good economy of the 1990s contributed to the high rate of coverage for children, but Sarah Shuptrine, director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Covering Kids initiative, said the state "has been particularly progressive in making access to the public (health insurance) programs easier." Pennsylvania passed a law in 1993 guaranteeing health coverage for children whose parents could not afford insurance but were ineligible for Medicaid. In addition, the state departments of
Health, Insurance and Public Welfare set up 9,000 partnerships with organizations around Pennsylvania and established a "major media campaign" publicizing children's health insurance options (Walker, Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/14).
