Filling the Health Insurance Gap

Researchers who analyzed 146,000 births in the San Francisco Bay area have shown conclusively that women covered by health insurance more often have healthy babies than those who are not.

Results of the study, headed by Dr. Paula Braveman of UC San Francisco, were published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine and make even more compelling the case for coverage for 37 million Americans who now have no health insurance. That flaw in the system would be cured with a bill, sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), to require employers to provide health insurance for employees. The Kennedy proposal would also create a public program to extend health coverage to all Americans not covered by an employer-sponsored plan.

The number of pregnant women who are not covered by health insurance in Northern California, and presumably elsewhere, is already too large, and it is growing. In 1982, 5.5% of Northern California women who gave birth were not covered by insurance, according to the records examined by researchers from UC San Francisco and the San Francisco Department of Public Health. By 1986, the number was up to 8%. The records also show that when mothers are uninsured their babies are 30% more likely to suffer serious medical problems or die.

More than 40,000 American babies die before their first birthday. No baby should die because a mother could not afford health insurance.