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Date: Friday, May 26, 1998
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: HCFA Press Office (202) 690-6145
HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced approval of Puerto Rico's plan to expand health coverage for thousands of uninsured children through the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Puerto Rico could receive as much as $9.8 million in new funds for fiscal year 1998 under the federal CHIP program -- the historic, bipartisan legislation signed last year by President Clinton. The CHIP law allocates $24 billion over the next five years to help states and territories expand health insurance to children whose families earn too much for traditional Medicaid, yet not enough to afford private health insurance. Officials in Puerto Rico estimate that there will be 165,000 children in their CHIP plan by the end of FY 1998.
In addition to Puerto Rico, 20 states have had their plans approved in the nine months since CHIP funds have been available. Together, these 21 states and territories anticipate providing health insurance coverage for more than one million currently uninsured children within the next three years.
"Too many working parents can't afford health care for their children, and too many children are at risk," Secretary Shalala said. "The Clinton Administration and the states are working together to give children the health care they need to live longer, healthier lives. That's good for all of us."
CHIP gives three options for devising a plan to cover uninsured children: designing a new children's health insurance program; expanding current Medicaid programs; or a combination of both strategies. HHS must approve each plan before CHIP funds become available.
Puerto Rico will use its allotment to expand Medicaid eligibility. Medicaid coverage will be expanded to cover children through age 18 in families with incomes below 200 percent of the commonwealth poverty level. (The commonwealth poverty level is $8,220 for a family of four.) Puerto Rico's program will include children currently under its public health system, which receives no federal funding. Puerto Rico is also unique in that it has elected to contribute more money than the standard federal-state matching funds. Of the 165,000 children, approximately 20,000 children will be covered under the federal CHIP program.
"The success of the CHIP program has shown an inspiring amount of cooperation between the federal government and the states. This is now extended to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico," said Nancy-Ann DeParle, administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which administers CHIP, Medicaid and Medicare. "It is through those efforts that we will realize the Administration's goal of providing health insurance to those who need it."
"We're pulling together to help hard-working, low-income parents give their kids the same kind of high quality health care others take for granted," said Claude Earl Fox, M.D., M.P.H., administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the agency working with HCFA and states to implement CHIP. "Free or low-cost health insurance is what families need to ensure their kids can grow up strong and healthy."
For the first year of the program, allotments totaling $4.3 billion are available to states whose plans are approved by HHS by Sept. 30, 1999. In addition to the 21 plans which have been approved -- Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, California, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Texas, Oregon, Idaho and Puerto Rico -- these plans have been submitted: Tennessee, Nevada, Vermont, Utah, Minnesota, Montana, Indiana, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Maine, New Hampshire, Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota, Kentucky and Virginia.