1277 Parents' Perspectives on Their Children's Health Insurance

Objective: To ascertain the prevalence of underinsurance among families within the Southwestern Ohio Ambulatory Research Network (SOAR-Net). Methods: Cross-sectional study of Englishspeaking parents whose child had health insurance completed surveys during Summer 2009 at SOARNet practices. Results: 1978 parents completed the survey and 186 refused. Overall, 84.9% were mothers, 75.4% were Euro-American, 91.2% reported at least a high school education, 61.2% of study children had private insurance. During the 12 months prior to the survey, 5.5% of index children did not see a recommended specialist, 4.7% did not have a test and 8.7% did not fill a prescription because of parents' trouble paying for it. 7.8% reported that their child's health had suffered due to the cost of care. Compared to three years ago, 16.7% of parents reported it was more difficult to obtain the health care their children needed; this was more likely to occur in private vs public insurance subgroups (17.8% vs 12.8%, p< 0.0001) and middle income (about 20%) vs lowest and highest income subgroups (about 13%< p< 0.0001). Overall, 13.1% of parents reported not being able to comply with AT LEAST one of their child's clinician's recommendations in the past 12 months due to trouble paying for it. Conclusions: About one in six parents reported more difficulty obtaining health care for their children over the past three years. The lowest and highest income subgroups of parents were less likely to report increasing difficulty. Children's underinsurance in the United States has become a major public health issue.