HRSA supports both the hotline and Web site that automatically connect people to their state resource for State Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid information and applications. The hotline, established in February 1999, has received more than 700,000 calls to date. Since HRSA began maintaining the Web site in March 2001, the site has received nearly 200,000 hits.

Some 10 million American children nationwide are estimated to be uninsured. SCHIP was created in 1997 with a 10-year, $40 billion appropriation to help states expand health insurance to children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to pay for private health insurance. More than 3 million children have enrolled in SCHIP to date.

HRSA works with states, private foundations, businesses, and other federal agencies to promote and compliment state outreach efforts through Insure Kids Now! These promotional efforts include partnerships with Social Security Administration, H&R Block, Wal-Mart, U.S. Postal Service, March of Dimes, Pampers Parenting Institute, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Covering Kids Initiative.

In August, Covering Kids launched a nationwide back-to-school campaign that worked in partnership with states to promote children's health insurance. Calls to the Insure Kids Now! hotline increased more than 300 percent from the previous month.

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