Supportive Health Services Needs of Children with Disabilities

To sharpen the focus on the differential need of children with disabilities, this paper focuses on a subset of health-related services that are used almost exclusively by children with disabilities--supportive services. The basic finding is that policies focused on low-income children will reach the majority of children with disabilities who have unmet supportive service needs. These needs range widely across types of services, however, making the effectiveness of public health insurance policies in reaching these children dependent also on how comprehensive the service coverage is. [22 PDF pages]