SCHIP Update Print E-mail
The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is an important piece of the financing puzzle for kids' coverage in California. SCHIP was originally established with ten years of funding. Facing this pending deadline, the U.S. Congress is debating SCHIP funding levels and potential program modifications. The outcome of these debates will have significant implications for sustaining–and potentially expanding–coverage for California children.

Currently, 763,000 Californians aged 0-18 are uninsured. Both health reform proposals by Governor Schwarzenegger and by the Democratic leadership of California's Legislature call for expanding publicly financed insurance programs to cover children in households with incomes of up to 300% of the federal poverty level. Both proposals incorporate the assumption that federal matching funds would help finance coverage for that expansion population.

California's version of SCHIP, called Healthy Families, is the largest SCHIP program in the country.  Spending about $1.2 billion federal dollars, the state provides coverage to about 800,000 children in Healthy Families. These dollars also help cover some children and pregnant women enrolled in Medi-Cal.

To help inform the policy conversation about SCHIP financing and children's coverage, the California HealthCare Foundation has undertaken several studies to examine the possible outcomes of the SCHIP reauthorization debate and their impact on children's health coverage in California.

The key findings of these studies are:

  • Without SCHIP reauthorization, the health insurance coverage of more than 1.5 million Californians is at risk over the next five years because SCHIP dollars support not only Healthy Families, but also the Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM) program and some Medi-Cal categories as well.
  • California will need between $6.7 and $8.1 billion over the next five years to maintain its existing SCHIP-funded programs.
  • Seventy-one percent of the state’s uninsured children are in families where the head of household works full time all year.
  • To expand Healthy Families to 300% of the federal poverty level as a part of broader health reform, California would need an additional $700 million over the next five years.

 
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