Chip Program Funding Remains In Question

On Dec. 21, Modern Healthcare reported the House and Senate reached a deal to keep the federal government operating through Jan. 19, 2018. However, the bill doesn’t address states needing funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP).

Bruce Lesley, of the Washington, D.C.-based First Focus called the funding bill a disaster for CHIP programs.

CNN reported 16 states will run out of federal funding for CHIP by the January. The information came from the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation data, Nebraska could run out of funding for CHIP by April or later. The same data predicts Colorado could run out of funding in January 2018. Kaiser data shows most of the states facing January funding shortages located in the west, from California to Colorado. Texas, Minnesota, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts is also facing January shortages.

A CNN report of Dec. 14 says CHIP provides health insurance coverage to nearly 9 million children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance.

CHIP is an expansion of Medicaid as health care coverage for qualified children who are without other health insurance and who do not qualify for Medicaid, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS ). The program provides the same services covered under Medicaid, the NDHHS website says.

In Nebraska, a child can qualify for the CHIP program if he or she is part of a household of one earning $25,304 annually to a household of eight with an annual income of $87,096. The applicants must also be a resident of Nebraska, under 19 years old or be a primary care giver with a child under the age of 19, and not covered by health insurance. The applicant must also be a U.S. national, citizen, legal alien or permanent resident.

According to the kindscountnebraska.com website, 64 percent of uninsured Nebraska kids are low-income, based on a U.S. Census Bureau 2015 survey. Likewise, 87.4 percent of Nebraska children are said to be in very good or excellent health, according to Child & Adolescent Health, National Survey of Children’s Health. In 2015, about 125,000 children 17 and younger were covered by public health insurance. Employer-based insurance accounted for about 275,000 children, 50,000 were in direct-purchase insurance and about 25,000 were uninsured. Of the 24,078 who were uninsured in Nebraska, 15,506 were considered low-income (below 200 percent of the federal poverty level).

The CHIP program accounts for 22.7 percent of the CHIP/Medicaid enrollment.

Cheyenne County ranks 51 of 78 in the state for Health Outcomes, 31 for length of Life and 64 for Quality of Life. In a study conducted by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, 12 percent of Cheyenne County is defined as in poor or fair health, 3.2 percent having poor physical health days, 3 percent having poor mental health days and 8 percent with low birthweight.

The program is designed to improve the access and continuity of care for children age 18 and younger, establish consistent preventive care, reduce state administrative burden to establish eligibility and improve Medicaid’s goal of easier and faster enrollment and eligibility process. CHIP is an expansion of Medicaid Title XIX. Medicaid providers are automatically eligible to provide health care services to CHIP eligible children, according to NDHHS.

According to the National Priorities Project website, Medicare and health spending in the Mandatory Spending budget accounted for $986 billion. Tax revenue accounts for $2.05 trillion and the federal government borrows $583 billion.