Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

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.

This brief summarizes the role Medicaid and CHIP plays in providing coverage to children, discusses the importance of Medicaid and CHIP for children’s health and well-being, provides an overview of the eligibility for coverage of the remaining uninsured children, and raises issues impacting the future of children’s coverage.

The new health reform law will require most U.S. citizens and legal residents to have health coverage by 2014. It provides new options for coverage by expanding Medicaid eligibility to more low-income people and creating a state-based system of health insurance exchanges through which individuals can purchase coverage, with federal…

In 1995, 17.5 million children — one-quarter of all children under age 18 — had Medicaid coverage for health care services. Medicaid, the federal/state health program for the poor, pays for a broad range of services for children including well-child care, immunizations, prescription drugs, doctor visits, and hospitalization, and a…

This paper provides an overview of Medicaid eligibility policy and examines two groups of Americans in particular – low-income children and nondisabled adults under 65 – and summarizes the statutory and regulatory pathways to Medicaid eligibility available to them as individuals. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy options…

: An Assessment of Coordination Efforts Between State SCHIP and Title V ProgramsThis study explores how the State Children’s Health Insurance Program serves children with special needs and assesses the role of the Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant program in filling in gaps in coverage. It…

SCHIP Program Enrollment: December 2003 UpdateThe latest survey of states on State Children's Health Insurance Program shows an enrollment decline in the second half of 2003–the first decline in the six-year history of the program.Report (.pdf)

A new survey of state officials, conducted by Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, found that the number of children enrolled in stateCHIP programs has grown to more than 1.3 million in June 1999 from about 835,000 in December 1998. The…

This fact sheet summarizes the early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment (EPSDT) Medicaid benefit for children and the current issues and debates that could impact the benefit. Fact Sheet (.pdf)

A fact sheet that provides an overview of how the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is administered and financed, who is eligible, what services are covered, and what the policy issues are for the program’s reauthorization. Fact Sheet (.pdf)