Released: August 22, 2007

Few know they are eligible for kids’ health coverage

Source: Kevin Sack, New York Times (Free Registration)

During the four years that her children were uninsured, Cassie O. Hall used the emergency room as their pediatrician. When Tayana had an asthma attack or Darren developed a stubborn rash, they would head to the hospital and settle in for a long wait.

The children never got physical exams or booster shots. And as the unpaid hospital bills stacked up, the threshold for a visit grew higher. “They would have to be half-dead before I would take them,” said Ms. Hall, a day care operator who could not afford private insurance.

It was only in May that Ms. Hall learned that her family qualified for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides subsidized insurance to children of the working poor. That she had never heard of the joint state and federal program made her typical of countless parents of the estimated eight million uninsured children.

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