Healthy Families: Percent of adults (0-64 year olds) and children (0-18 year olds) with health insurance coverage

What does this measure?

• Calculated from the Washington State Population Survey (SPS) for persons 0 to 64 years of age and for children 0-18.
• Overall health insurance status is determined from nine questions regarding specific types of health insurance coverage including Medicaid, Medicare, military, and Basic Health Program coverage.

Why is it important?

• While access to health insurance does not ensure access to health care, it does pave the way (as a financing vehicle) for the chain of access, use, and improved outcome to more readily occur.
• “Although the relationship between health insurance and health outcomes is neither direct nor simple, an extensive clinical and health services research literature links health insurance coverage to improved access to care, better quality, and improved personal and population health status.” (Coverage Matters: Insurance and Health Care. Institute of Medicine, 2001, page 26.). The affordability of coverage has become a growing issue for individuals and employers and sustainability of public programs an increasing issue for government.

How is Washington doing?

• Based on the findings from the Washington State Population Survey, the percent of children with health insurance coverage and the percent of non-elderly with coverage have not changed significantly since 2000.

What is state government’s role?

• In the 1980’s and 1990’s Washington was a leader on many coverage fronts – expansion of coverage for low-income working families (Basic Health) and for children and their families (Medicaid coverage for children up to 200 percent federal poverty before SCHIP); pre HIPAA market reforms; early adoption of a high risk pool. When employer-based coverage began to gradually decline, public program expansions filled the gap and coverage steadily increased.
• Washington has made consistent public policy decisions regarding who needs financial help to obtain coverage: adults to 200 percent and children to 250 percent of federal poverty, and Washington's public programs are covering nearly 18 percent of the under-age 65 population.

Graph & Data Set

 

	Health care coverage for 0-64 year olds
2000	91%
2002	90%
2004	89%
2006	90%

 

	Children's health care coverage (0-18 years old)
2000	95%
2002	96%
2004	94%
2006	96%

 

For more information…
Contact: Office of Financial Management