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Under the new State Planning Grants program, administered by HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), grantees from state agencies first will conduct studies to better identify the characteristics of uninsured citizens. The grantees -- from Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont and Wisconsin -- then will use that data to determine the most effective methods to provide them with high-quality, affordable health insurance similar to plans that cover government employees or other benchmark plans.

"These grants are a vital step in the Clinton-Gore administration's ongoing effort to provide access to quality health care for all Americans," Secretary Shalala said. "It is the latest example of how steady, incremental progress moves our nation closer to that goal. Strong interest among states for the planning grants reflects the importance of the administration's efforts to increase access to quality care."

Thirty-five states and U.S. territories applied for the fiscal year 2000 grants, and grantees are required by the grant's end, Sept. 30, 2001, to provide a report to the Secretary detailing their proposals for expanding public-private partnerships to cover all uninsured citizens.

"We expect to receive some interesting and inventive models for covering the uninsured that will be very useful to other states and the nation as a whole," HRSA administrator Claude Earl Fox, M.D., M.P.H, said.

These state planning grants complement another recently announced HHS grants program -- the Community Access Program, also administered by HRSA -- that recently awarded about $22 million in grants to 23 communities to help local health providers develop integrated service delivery networks offering uninsured individuals a full range of health care services.

Background information on the State Planning Grants program is available on the Web at www.hrsa.gov/stateplanning/.

The list of grantees and awards is below.

HRSA Fiscal Year 2000 State Planning Grantees