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Date: Friday, June 12, 1998 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: HCFA Press Office (202) 690-6145
HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced approval of Oregon's plan to expand health coverage for thousands of uninsured children through the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Oregon could receive as much as $39 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 expand health insurance to children whose families earn too much for traditional Medicaid, yet not enough to afford private health insurance. Oregon officials estimate they will enroll approximately 17,000 children in their CHIP program by July 1, 1999.
Oregon is the eighteenth state to have its plan approved in the nine months since CHIP funds have been available. Together, these 18 states 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 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.
Oregon will use its new allocation to expand coverage to children from birth to age 6 with incomes between 133 percent and 170 percent of poverty (the federal poverty level is $16,450 for a family of four). Coverage will also be extended to children from age 6 to age 19 with family incomes between 100-170 percent of poverty.
Children in the new CHIP program will receive the same benefit package as children currently enrolled in the state's Medicaid section 1115 waiver demonstration. The benefit package includes inpatient and outpatient hospital services, inpatient psychiatric services, physician services, dental services, home health services, lab services and prescription drugs and other medically necessary services.
"The success of the CHIP program has shown an inspiring amount of cooperation between the federal government and the states," 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 18 states which have been approved -- Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Oregon -- these plans have been submitted: Tennessee, Nevada, Vermont, Puerto Rico, Utah, Minnesota, Montana, Indiana, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Maine, New Hampshire, Texas, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho and South Dakota.