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Date: Friday, May 8, 1998 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: HCFA Press Office (202) 690-6145
HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced approval of Rhode Island's plan for children's health insurance, which will provide health coverage for thousands of uninsured children.
Rhode Island could receive as much as $10.6 million this year in new funds, which state officials will use to insure as many as 3,000 children by the end of fiscal year 2000. The program is the result of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) -- the historic, bipartisan legislation signed last year by President Clinton. The 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.
Rhode Island is the thirteenth state to have its plan approved in the eight months since CHIP funds became available. Together, these 13 states anticipate providing health insurance coverage for more than one million currently uninsured children within the next three years.
"By providing children with health insurance, we are giving them a real head start on a healthy life," Shalala said. "Working together, the Clinton Administration and the states are making remarkable progress in reducing the number of uninsured children in this country. Together, we are bringing working parents and their kids tremendous peace of mind."
CHIP gives states 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 state's plan before CHIP funds become available.
Rhode Island will use its allocation to expand its Medicaid program. The program will provide comprehensive health care coverage to children between the ages of 8 and 15 whose families have incomes between 100 percent and 250 percent of the federal poverty level (the poverty level is $16,450 for a family of four). The program will also cover children between the ages of 15 and 18 in families with incomes up to 250 percent of poverty. These children will receive a comprehensive benefit package. Beginning at 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $30,432 for a family of four, families will begin paying modest premiums or copayments.
"We are pleased that Rhode Island is creating a new CHIP program that will provide a brighter future for thousands of children who otherwise would not have had health coverage," said Nancy-Ann DeParle, administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which runs the CHIP, Medicaid and Medicare programs.
"With CHIP we're doing more than putting an insurance card into parents' hands," said Claude Earl Fox, M.D., M.P.H., acting administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the agency working with HCFA and states to implement CHIP. "We're extending a hand to families, helping them enroll in the new program and put their children into high quality, comprehensive health care that will keep them healthy, learning and growing."
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, 1998. In addition to the thirteen states which have been approved--Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri and Rhode Island--these states and Puerto Rico have submitted plans: Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Vermont, Wisconsin, Texas, Utah, Montana, Indiana and Maryland.