Congress Lets CHIP Expire, and States Scramble
In the meantime, some states are already preparing to freeze enrollment or cut off insurance coverage as they face the possibility of running out of CHIP funding in the near future.
The federal Medicaid and
"Most states have already passed their budgets, and the vast majority of them expected it to be reauthorized.
The uncertainty is forcing states to make tough decisions: Do they fund the program themselves, at the expense of other programs, or do they cut or cap the program?
CHIP provides health insurance to 9 million low-income children and pregnant mothers who don't qualify for Medicaid. It's jointly funded by the federal government and states, but the feds foot almost 80 percent of the bill.
If states are forced to unenroll some children, it'll be "a very complicated" process of deciding who gets cut off, says Alker. Children in states that don't fully fund CHIP with Medicaid dollars are most at risk of losing insurance, she says. Thirty-six states fall into that category.
"You can't wait until the last minute to tell families that they're kids are losing health insurance. We want to give them 60 days. It's also expensive to shut down a program. CHIP is embedded into our I.T, auditing, prior authorization systems. That's work," says
There are far-reaching impacts of reducing the number of kids who have health insurance.
"Medical practices in more low-income places will suddenly have uninsured children. We have kids in the middle of a course of treatment. We have 1,100 pregnant women in
The number of uninsured kids is at a record low, with 95.5 percent of children under the age of 18 now covered by some form of health insurance, according to the
"This is a historic bipartisan accomplishment, and it's something we should be proud of," says Akler. "Inaction by
When States Are Expected to
SOURCE: Medicaid and
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