Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) hosts a web briefing to present findings from our 13th annual 50-state survey of Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment, renewal, and cost-sharing policies. The survey provides a profile of where states stand as of January 2015, one year into the implementation of the major Medicaid provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

With some states grappling over whether to expand Medicaid, and Congress facing big decisions about the future of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), this briefing reviewed the basics about both programs, and discuss current issues. Co-hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alliance for Health Reform, KFF’s Diane Rowland and Ed Howard of the Alliance moderated the discussion.

On Friday, March 6, 2014, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alliance for Health Reform hosted an ACA 101 briefing on the Affordable Care Act. The briefing took place just as the second marketplace enrollment period ended, and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging the ACA’s subsidies (King v Burwell).

This issue brief provides state level CHIP enrollment data, adding the June 2013 period. In June 2013, over 5.7 million children were enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP.) Enrollment in June 2013 increased by 190,453 or by 3.4 percent, compared to one year earlier. Since 2009, annual rates of growth have remained fairly steady, ranging between 3.2 percent and 3.8 percent. In contrast, during the height of the Great Recession, enrollment increased annually by 7.8 to 10 percent. Overall, CHIP enrollment continued to increase, but growth slow to the lowest rates since the start of the Recession as the economic conditions continued to improve. CHIP programs, along with state Medicaid programs continue to play a critical role in assuring health coverage for uninsured children.

This brief provides an overview of children’s coverage leading up to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a review of changes for children included in the ACA, and a look at issues leading up to the reauthorization of the CHIP program.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was established in 1997 to provide coverage for uninsured children who are low-income but above the threshold for Medicaid eligibility. In 2009, and again in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Congress extended federal funding for CHIP, but funding will expire a little over a year from now. Decisions about CHIP’s future funding will be consequential as more than 8 million low-income children were covered by CHIP at some point during 2012. To help inform the policy debate about CHIP, this brief reviews key data and evidence from the large body of research on the impact of children’s coverage.

On Monday, July 14, 2014, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alliance for Health Reform will host a briefing to discuss CHIP, and why it was created, as well as experiences with children’s coverage through CHIP and Medicaid, and some of the key policy and financing questions around children’s health coverage looking forward.

CMS recently released its latest update on Medicaid and CHIP enrollment data, covering the period through April 2014. This fact sheet provides a brief overview of the latest data and what it suggests about the impact of the ACA on Medicaid and CHIP enrollment, providing historical trends for context

This report focuses on changes in monthly CHIP enrollment between December 2012 and December 2013. This is a long standing report that collects monthly CHIP enrollment data for December (and June, not reported here) going back to 2000. While the data provided in this report are not directly comparable to the data released by CMS, they provide context for the preliminary data released by CMS, illustrating historical trends in CHIP enrollment.

While Medicaid and CHIP eligibility has increased over time, there is significant variation in eligibility levels across states and eligibility groups. This analysis examines trends in Medicaid and CHIP eligibility limits over time for children, pregnant women, parents, and other adults. It also explores how trends in eligibility for these groups vary by several variables, including geographic region, Medicaid expansion status, and state health ranking.