COVERAGE: A Back-to-School Necessity

Backpack? Of course. Lunchbox? Certainly. Shoes with wheels in the heel? Maybe. But health insurance? Definitely.

That's the message the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation hopes to convey as it kicks off its annual Cover the Uninsured Back-to-School Campaign with a report highlighting the importance of health insurance to children's health.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota, found that children with insurance were three times more likely to have visited a doctor in the past year and highlighted the importance of public programs like Medicaid and SCHIP for ensuring children's access to needed care. For example:

• Less than half of uninsured children received a "well child" check-up in the past year, compared to more than three quarters of kids with insurance.
• Uninsured children with chronic illnesses, like diabetes or asthma, were four times more likely to forgo or delay needed care than children enrolled in public programs
• Uninsured children with chronic illnesses were almost three times more likely not to have a personal doctor, compared to children in public programs.

Gaining health insurance leads to not only major improvements in a child's access to care, but also has significant impacts on other aspects of a child's life. The CDC asserts that, "The academic success of America's youth is strongly linked with their health." Healthy children miss fewer days of school and demonstrate better academic achievement. A program to cover children in Missouri decreased absences by 39 percent and an initiative in California improved school performance by 68 percent. Researchers have found that public programs like Medicaid are crucial to a student's school readiness, and improving early childhood health has important implications for combating cycles of intergenerational poverty.

What's true for our children is also true for our nation as a whole.

These findings are consistent with the reasons researchers have found that insurance matters for the health and well-being of both individuals and society. The uninsured delay needed treatment and care. They are diagnosed with diseases later, remain sicker longer, and ultimately, die earlier. Their burden affects all of us-through the hidden tax of uncompensated care, the danger of over-crowded ERs, and as much as $204 billion in economic losses due to diminished health and shorter life spans.

Despite what we know about the advantages of insuring our nation's children, the Urban Institute finds that more than six-in-10 uninsured children qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but are not enrolled.

Rolling shoes and Hannah Montana lunch boxes can wait. Making sure all children (and all Americans) have access to quality, affordable health care should be at the top of every parent's (and policymaker's) back-to-school list.