As policymakers in Washington consider health reform, the care and coverage of the nation’s children is certain to be part of the debate. During the campaign President Obama said that he would require that all children have health coverage. Congress recently reauthorized and expanded funding for the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP*).
The Kaiser Family Foundation has several resources that explain the state of children's health and health care coverage and can serve as helpful reference guides in understanding the policy debate. The materials include state level data on children’s coverage and overviews of the role of Medicaid and CHIP, which together provide coverage for more than one in four children.
- Fact Sheet: Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009
- CHIP TIPS: New Opportunities For Covering Children Under Medicaid and CHIP
A new series of implementation briefs called “CHIP Tips” examines opportunities for covering children following the reauthorization and expansion of CHIP in February 2009. The series is jointly produced by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the Center for Children and Families at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute.
- Oral Health Coverage and Care For Low-Income Children: The Role of Medicaid and CHIP
Dental care is the most prevalent unmet health need among children.
- Ask the Experts Webcast: "The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorized: What's Next?"
This February 12 Ask the Experts webcast featured panelists discussing the next steps in children's coverage now that President Obama has signed the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 into law.
- Challenges of Providing Health Coverage for Children and Parents in a Recession: A 50-State Update on Eligibility Rules, Enrollment and Renewal Procedures, and Cost-Sharing Practices in Medicaid and SCHIP in 2009
This eighth annual 50-state survey of eligibility rules, enrollment and renewal procedures, and cost-sharing practices in Medicaid and SCHIP for children finds that state efforts to expand coverage to children slowed in state fiscal year 2008.
- Health Coverage of Children: Role of Medicaid and SCHIP
This fact sheet summarizes the latest coverage data on the nation’s children, including a brief profile of the uninsured, and it examines the key role played by two public programs, Medicaid and SCHIP.
- Children's Health Fact Sheets
Get customized, state-level data on children’s health, including insurance coverage, childhood immunization rate, infant death rate and Medicaid enrollment and spending.
- Health Insurance Coverage of America’s Children
This online chartbook, based on 2007 Census Bureau data, provides basic facts about children's health insurance coverage.
- Fact Sheet: Enrolling Uninsured Low-Income Children in Medicaid and SCHIP
- Impact of Medicaid and SCHIP on Low-Income Children's Health
This policy brief examines the impact of Medicaid and SCHIP on coverage, access to care and health for the nation's low-income children.
- Next Steps in Covering Uninsured Children: Findings from the Kaiser Survey of Children’s Health Coverage
This issue brief provides key findings from the Kaiser Survey of Children’s Health Coverage conducted in 2007, including that many low- and middle-income working families with an uninsured child do not have access to employer-sponsored health insurance. A separate brief based on the same survey examines health insurance coverage for low-income citizen children whose parents are not citizens.
- Dental Coverage and Care for Low-Income Children: Role of Medicaid and SCHIP
Dental care is the most prevalent unmet health need among children.
- Emerging Health Information Technology for Children in Medicaid and SCHIP
A report on states’ use of information technology to better reach and enroll eligible children and improve quality of care in Medicaid and SCHIP.
- The Children's Health Insurance Timeline
- State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP): Reauthorization History
* The legislation reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, signed into law on Feb. 4, 2009, changed the acronym for the program to CHIP. It was previously known as SCHIP.
Please visit this page again soon. The Foundation will post new and updated research and analysis about children’s care and coverage as it becomes available.
