Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

Top Children's Health Coverage Myths:

1. Working families can afford coverage.
a. 2001: employed-sponsored health insurance premiums for families have increased by 80%.


2. Uninsured children would have coverage if their parents worked.
a. Almost 90 percent of uninsured children live in families where at least one parent works.


3. It’s expensive to provide health coverage to children.
a. Children are far less expensive to cover that adults and the most cost-efficient investment we can make in healthcare.

 

4. Children don’t need health coverage because they are healthy.
a. They need regular preventive care to ensure healthy growth and development.
b. Unmet health and mental health needs can result in children failing behind developmentally and having trouble catching up, physically, emotionally, socially, and academically.


5. The United States health system may have problems but it’s not broken.
a. Although the United States spends the highest amount of money per person on health care, our children’s health fares poorly compared to other wealthy countries
b. Among industrialized nations, we rank first in health expenditures, but 22nd in low birth weight rates, 23rd in life expectancy and 27th in infant mortality rates.
c. About two-thirds of the more than 8 million uninsured children are currently eligible for either Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or Medicaid but are not enrolled largely due to state bureaucratic barriers.


6. Parents can easily get health care for their children.
a. State barriers make it very difficult for parents to secure needed health coverage for their eligible children.
b. That’s why about 6 million children who qualify for government health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP do not get it.


7. All pregnant women have health coverage.
a. There are about 800,000 uninsured pregnant women in America. They receive less prenatal care and face greater risks for expensive and tragic outcomes including maternal complications, low birth weight babies, and even infant.


8. All children can get government health coverage it their families don’t have private insurance.
a. The recent expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will leave approximately 5-6 million children uninsured and millions more underinsured.


9. Uninsured children can access the healthcare they need at the emergency room.
a. Relying on emergency rooms for health care can result in worse health outcomes for children and higher costs to the community.


10. Children can get coverage through their parents’ employer.
a. Health coverage under employer-sponsored insurance has declined. Some businesses have dropped coverage for workers and their families while others only cover the workers, but not their children.
b. Enrolling uninsured children in programs requires extensive costly outreach.





Brief Overview: Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP - Youtube: CHIP)

Millions of children in lower income families remain uninsured due in large part to the high cost of health coverage. Therefore, in 1997, Congress created the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to sit on the shoulders of Medicaid for children in families with slightly higher income levels. As with Medicaid, each state was given the flexibility to design its CHIP program within broad federal parameters on income eligibility, benefits, and enrollment procedures.



In 2009, Congress reauthorized CHIP and expanded the program to cover more uninsured children. This renewal also included some important improvements for children, including eliminating the 5 year waiting period for legal immigrant children eligible for the program and grants for outreach and enrollment activities to help enroll eligible but uninsured children. Subsequently, Congress passed the landmark health reform legislation in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Affordable Care Act), which will maintain CHIP through 2019, with fully funding the program through 2015 – doubling the number of eligible children who can be served from 7 to 14 million.




CHIP benefits for children differ by state, but in general, enrolled children are eligible for a fairly comprehensive set of services, including routine doctor visits, immunizations, dental and vision care, hospitalizations, and laboratory and x-ray services, but not the full set of medically necessary services that children in Medicaid and Medicaid-expansion CHIP programs are entitled to.