Low-income children's preventive services use: implications of parents' Medicaid status

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Pediatric Health
• Public Health Policy

Background:

• Access to preventive health services is crucial for young children's well-being.
• Parental insurance status can influence children's healthcare utilization.
• Medicaid is a key program for low-income families accessing healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of parental Medicaid status on children's use of preventive health services.
• To compare well-child visit (WCV) rates among children with different parental insurance statuses.
• To quantify the potential increase in WCVs with expanded Medicaid coverage.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data.
• Utilized a logit model to assess the probability of receiving WCVs.
• Compared three groups of low-income children based on joint child-parent insurance status: Medicaid pairs, mixed pairs, and uninsured pairs.

Main Results:

• Children's Medicaid coverage was positively associated with receiving WCVs.
• The positive effect of children's Medicaid coverage on WCVs was significantly greater when parents also had Medicaid.
• Simulations indicated enrolling uninsured children with uninsured parents in Medicaid could increase WCVs from 29% to 43%.

Conclusions:

• Parental Medicaid enrollment substantially enhances the impact of children's Medicaid coverage on WCV utilization.
• Expanding Medicaid to both children and parents could significantly increase preventive care access for low-income families.
• Policy interventions should consider comprehensive family coverage to maximize child health service uptake.