Providing Health Insurance to Low-Income Children Improves Their Quality of Life
RAND:
Providing low-income children with government-sponsored health insurance improves their quality of life as it expands their access to doctors and other health services, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.
Studying families in California, researchers found that children newly enrolled in a public health insurance program reported improvements such as doing better in school, feeling better physically and getting along better with their peers, according to a study published in the September edition of the Journal of Pediatrics.
"Having an insurance card makes it easier to get care when you need it and getting that care makes you feel better," said Michael Seid, a RAND psychologist and lead author of the study.
"We as a society have invested a lot of money to provide insurance to kids and there is still doubt about whether the money is well spent," Seid said.
At the point of enrollment, black and Latino parents were more likely than whites to report that during the previous year their children had foregone needed care and that they had trouble finding care for their children.
Parents completed surveys about use of health care and family characteristics, while both parents and children age 5 and older completed the PedsQL, a 23-item survey that measures issues related to children's quality of life.
RAND Health, a division of the RAND Corporation, is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on quality, costs and delivery, among other topics.
