HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced approval of Minnesota's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) plan which will build on the state's history of providing health coverage for thousands of uninsured children.

Minnesota has been among the most progressive states in the nation in providing health insurance coverage for children and families. Today's decision enables the state to lay the groundwork for its CHIP program -- the historic, bipartisan initiative signed last year by President Clinton.

Minnesota currently covers approximately 50,000 children who would otherwise be uninsured. The state has accomplished this through a Section 1115 Medicaid waiver amendment, granted in 1995. The MinnesotaCare program provides health coverage to pregnant women and children with family incomes up to 275 percent of the federal poverty level (the poverty level for a family of four is $16,450).

"The Clinton Administration and the states are working together to give children the health care they need to live longer, healthier lives," Secretary Shalala said. AWe commend Minnesota for its outstanding record and commitment to the nation's most vulnerable population and are glad it is planning to do even more."

While the state plans to enroll just a few children in the first year, today's approval allows Minnesota to secure its allotment under the CHIP law. The state could receive as much as $28 million over three years. However, Minnesota - like all states with CHIP plans - will receive federal matching funds only for actual expenditures on insuring children. The CHIP law allocates $24 billion over the next five years to help states expand health insurance to children whose families earn too much for traditional Medicaid, yet not enough to afford private health insurance. Through future amendments, Minnesota will be able to insure more children.

Minnesota is the 25th plan to be approved in the 11 months since CHIP funds have been available. Together, these 24 states and Puerto Rico estimate that they will provide health insurance coverage for more than two million currently uninsured children within the next three years.

"The CHIP program is making great strides in providing health care to children and helping us realize the Administration's goal of providing health care to those who need it," said Nancy-Ann DeParle, administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which administers CHIP, Medicaid and Medicare.

"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 the states to implement CHIP.

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 25 plans which have been approved -- Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Idaho, Oregon, Texas, Indiana, Puerto Rico, Utah, North Carolina, and Minnesota -- these plans have been submitted: Tennessee, Nevada, Vermont, Maryland, Montana, the District of Columbia, Arkansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Maine, New Hampshire, Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, the Virgin Islands, and Kansas.

Note: HHS press releases are available on the World Wide Web at: www.hhs.gov.