Uninsured Asthma Children Don’t See Doctor

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. children with asthma may be at risk of a major attack while they have no health insurance, a doctor warns.

Too many children with this chronic condition are without insurance at some point during the year, study author Dr. Jill Halterman of the University of Rochester said in a statement. These children need to have ongoing treatment from a primary care provider to avoid serious health complications. Without that, they are at increased risk for ongoing symptoms and even hospitalization.

The study, published in Ambulatory Pediatrics, found 30 percent of the 759,000 children with asthma come from families that earn more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, putting them above the threshold for the state children’s health insurance program in most states.

The researchers used data collected in 2003 to 2004 at the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The study also found more than one-third of parents of children who had lost insurance, and about one-half of parents of children with no insurance for a full year, said their child had not seen a personal doctor for preventive care in the past year.