A Problem in Health Care Nursing Administration

To state it in its simplest form, the problem is that some children are not covered by medical insurance and do not receive appropriate medical care. Although there are program designed specifically to address the needs of poor children, there are gaps in coverage. There are differences in estimates of the number of children uncovered. For example, Perloff (1999) quotes one figure in which 15 percent of American children, or 11 million children, are without health insurance. On the other hand, Wolfe (1999) indicated that during 1997, approximately 23.8 percent of poor children were without health insurance coverage (Wolfe, 1999). In any event, millions of children paid access to health care, and many of these children consequently are not take to doctors and do not receive treatment for minor and major medical conditions. There are also groups of children who are at even higher risk, including teen-agers, children of color, and children in single-parent families (Weigers, Weinick and Cohen, 1998).

Much of the problem seems to rest with Medicaid. According to statistics, in 1997, Medicaid covered approximately 21 million children, but another 5 million who were eligible were not enrolled. Medicaid enrollment of children actually dropped 1.4 percent from 1995-1997. On the other hand, a new program, the Children's Health Insurance Program, was increasing its coverage, signing up 1.3 milli

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Even though some of those might still be pertinent with universal health coverage, providing health insurance is likely to reduce inequalities in access to care. Although it is unlikely that Congress will currently adopt any plan of universal coverage, it is possible that Congress will agree upon a plan to cover a percentage of the children that are currently not covered under any insurance plan. Certainly the CHIPS plan was an attempt to ameliorate the situation and it seems to be having some success in covering poor uninsured children. There still remains a large number of the uninsured, however. There have also been fears expressed by legislators that the CHIPS program would actually crowd out employment-based health insurance coverage, simply shifting children from one type of coverage to another, and costs from the private sector to the public sector. This does not seem to be much of a problem, however, since most of the poorest children who do not have coverage are less likely to have parents who have access to employment-based insurance coverage. While there was a slight shifting in the Florida programs, analysts indicated that this was necessary in order to insure that children receive necessary health insurance. T
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1538
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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