Fewer Kids Receiving Health Care Through Parent's Work

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published September 3, 2007 at 5:32 AM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

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 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.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.