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Many parents of chronically ill children in California are unaware of paid family leave program |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Parents of children with special health needs in California often are not aware that there is a paid family leave insurance program available for their use, with only 5 percent of those surveyed having used the program, according to a study in the September 3 issue of JAMA. Chronically ill children, or children with special health care needs, comprise 13 percent to 17 percent of children in the United States, according to background information in the article. In 2004, California's Paid Family Leave Insurance Program (PFLI) became the first state program to provide paid leave to care for an ill family member, providing 6 weeks of non--job-protected paid leave annually for most part-time and full-time employees at approximately 55 percent of salary. The researchers conducted telephone interviews with employed parents of children with special health care needs, randomly sampled from two children's hospitals, one in California (with PFLI) and the other in Illinois (without PFLI). Before PFLI began, 295 parents (81 percent) at the California site and 290 parents (78 percent) at the Illinois site took at least 1 day of leave in the previous year to care for their ill child compared with after PFLI began (327 parents [79 percent] at the California site and 296 parents [79 percent] at the Illinois site). "An important issue for states to consider is that failure to enact paid family leave legislation will likely increase costs to the state and to the family. Medicaid case loads and expenses are likely to increase with increased enrollment of chronically ill children at the high end of the health care cost spectrum."
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