• Insurance for poor people

Insurance for poor people

This paper uses the Fragile Families and Child Welfare study to estimate health insurance status of urban, mostly unmarried, mothers and their one-year-old children. It examines why a substantial number of mothers and children within this category do not have any health insurance one year after the birth, despite virtually all births being covered by health insurance.

Some of the findings outlined in the paper include:

• child health is for the most part not associated with insurance loss of mothers
• family instability caused by poor child health does not result in families becoming uninsured
• when mothers have physical health conditions, both child and mother are less likely to become uninsured than if the mother is healthy
• maternal mental illness increases the likelihood for loss of insurance for both child and mother
• mental illness can also result in unfavourable parenting practices, leading to cognitive, social and emotional problems for the children
• the authors argue that the hospital of delivery would be a convenient place for mothers diagnosed with mental illnesses to be educated about the availability and importance of postnatal health insurance coverage for both child and mother. Follow-ups should also be scheduled to ensure that the children do not get lost in the system
• observing that children and their mothers are more likely to be uninsured by the age of one if the father is in poor physical health, the authors suggest that subsidies should be offered to men in poor health to enable them to afford health insurance for themselves and their dependents

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