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Fewer Kids Receiving Health Care Through Parent's Work

Fewer and fewer people get health insurance through their jobs. Labor figures released this weekend show the trend has affected children even more than adults. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more o

Fewer Kids Receiving Health Care Through Parent's Work

Fewer and fewer people get health insurance through their jobs. Labor figures released this weekend show the trend has affected children even more than adults.  KPBS reporter Alison St John has more on the latest findings.

The likelihood that you will get health insurance through your employer has fallen 7 percent since the year 2000. And according analyst Ken Jacobs  of  U.C. Berkeley’s  Center for Labor Research, the number of children who get insured through their parents’ work has fallen even more dramatically.  

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Jacobs: In California in 2006 the percentage of California children with job based coverage that’s coverage through parents work has fallen to less than 50 percent , that compares to 62 percent just six years ago.

Even unionized workers such as grocery  workers have seen the waiting period to get health insurance for their kids grow longer.

In California, the trend has been more than offset by the state’s  Healthy families program that now covers almost 30 percent of children. President Bush is considering cuts to that plan.

One in ten California children are insured by their parents out of pocket and 13 percent simply have no health insurance at all. Alison St John, KPBS news.