Welcome to the world of the uninsured - to Christine Stewart's world.

The mother of two and her husband don't have insurance working as waiters in Moab, but her two sons are sick.

Stewart is relying on hope, homeopathic remedies and some borrowed antibiotics to cure her 7-year-old's earache. And she's waiting until July to take her 4-year-old to the dentist for a dead tooth.

That's when the state will have enough money to enroll 12,000 more kids in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which now pays for insurance for 28,706 youth. Enrollment starts July 2.

Stewart is counting down the days.

"It's a ticking time bomb," she said of the wait. "If you were to take them in for everything you need to take them for, you'd be done. There's no way to afford it. The main consequence is kids are lacking care that they need."

Choking up, Stewart laments the position she's in. "It's horrible. It should never be a question whether you take them or not."

But it's one that parents of the 89,500 Utah children who don't have health insurance must make - and their health and the community suffer for it, say doctors and advocates for low-income people.

The ranks of uninsured children in Utah grew by 26 percent from 2005 to 2006, health officials determined earlier this month. CHIP enrollment has been closed since September because of a lack of funds.

State lawmakers gave $4 million to add more children to the CHIP rolls this coming summer. But it's not enough. The state would need to spend an additional $4.4 million to cover all of the children eligible for the low-income program.

Pediatrician Karen Buchi, who treats patients who rely on CHIP, Medicaid or have no insurance, says the state must step up.

"We have to make health care and health coverage for all one of our major priorities," said the president-elect of the Utah chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Noting families without insurance are living on the edge and could be pushed over by a medical emergency, she said, "We as a nation can do better."

The uninsured are less likely to seek routine, preventive care; fewer are immunized (until they enroll in schools) and they wait to seek care for acute problems, making the illness worse and more expensive to treat, Buchi said.

"They either have to decide to buy groceries or take their child to the doctor when they're uninsured," she said. "Parents shouldn't have to be put in the position of trying to decide maybe this will just go away because they don't feel they can afford to take their child to the doctor. They wouldn't know if it's going to progress to something more serious."

Nationally, advocates have been horrified and galvanized by the recent case of a 12-year-old Washington, D.C., boy who died when a toothache led to a brain infection, according to The Washington Post. His family didn't have insurance and couldn't find a dentist willing to take Medicaid. The final tab of the boy's medical bills will top $250,000.

Stewart knows how that goes. In November, the Moab mother opted not to pay for a blood test to see what was ailing her son. It ended up being pneumonia and she had to take him to the hospital. The bill was $2,500.

"If I would have had insurance, the test would have been done, he would have had a prescription [for antibiotics]. By trying to save money, I screwed myself."

Mike Rice is relying on luck while he waits for CHIP. The retired schoolteacher is seeking permanent custody of step-grandson Bishop Sibley, and can't put the boy on his insurance until the paperwork is finalized.

Rice said they have been lucky so far that 12-year-old Sibley has been healthy, except for the stitches he needed after running into a metal pole playing tag. That cost $1,200.

The Murray family is taking steps to avoid the doctor's office. "We feed him well. We get him exercise. We make him sleep 10 hours a night," Rice said. "I tell him all the time - I say, 'Be careful, we don't have insurance. Don't do anything stupid.' That doesn't mean he's not going to. You do the best you can."

Deanne Atwood considers CHIP a blessing that saved her family's finances. The Moab mom would have had a $60,000 medical bill to pay last fall after her 9-year-old contracted pneumonia and was flown to Primary Children's Medical Center when his body started shutting down.

Her part-time employer doesn't offer health insurance, and without CHIP, she wouldn't take her children for their dental check-ups.

She would avoid the doctor's office unless it was an emergency.

"There's no way we could survive as a family without CHIP," she said. "It's definitely something that's really needed in Utah."

hmay@sltrib.com

Cover the Uninsured Week

This week is national Cover the Uninsured Week, created to highlight the need to expand health insurance coverage to the 45 million Americans. Events are planned throughout the country, including in Provo. On Thursday, Community Health Connect will host a health fair and offer free health screening, immunizations and physicals from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Utah County Health and Justice Building, 151 S. University.