No care for the caregivers: declining health insurance coverage for health care personnel and their children, 1988-1998.
OBJECTIVE
This study examined trends in health insurance coverage for health care workers and their children between 1988 and 1998.


METHODS
We analyzed data from the annual March supplements of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a Census Bureau survey that collects information about health insurance from a nationally representative sample of noninstitutionalized US residents.


RESULTS
Of the health care personnel younger than 65 years, 1.36 million (90% confidence interval [CI] = 1.28 million, 1.45 million) were uninsured in 1998, up 83.4% from 1988; the proportion uninsured rose from 8.4% (90% CI = 7.8%, 9.1%) to 12.2% (90% CI = 11.5%, 12.9%). Declining coverage rates in the growing private-sector health care workforce---and declining health employment in the public sector, which provided health insurance benefits to more of its workers---accounted for the increases. Households with a health care worker included 1.12 million (90% CI = 1.05 million, 1.20 million) uninsured children, accounting for 10.1% (90% CI = 9.5%, 10.8%) of all uninsured children in the United States.


CONCLUSIONS
Health care personnel are losing health insurance coverage more rapidly than are other workers. Increasingly, the health care sector is consigning its own workers and their children to the ranks of the uninsured.
Case
Brady G S
BG
Harvard Medical School, 955 Massachusetts Ave., PMB #321, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. bcase@post.harvard.edu
Himmelstein
David U
DU
Woolhandler
Steffie
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003625:Data Collection; D004991:Ethics, Institutional; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends*; D006281:Health Occupations / Q000145:classification; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007325:Institutional Practice / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D017057:Medically Uninsured / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D017149:Private Sector / Q000191:economics; D017150:Public Sector / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce