1. Covering Kids and Families National Program Office Positions Available
Covering Kids and Families is recruiting four regional coordinators who will be key to implementing their new initiative. Applications are due 12 March and the job objectives are:
* To provide directly or through other resources, monitoring, technical assistance and program support for assigned states, thereby contributing to and enhancing the success of the approved projects funded under this initiative.
* To encourage and facilitate region-wide collaboration that will result in building regional capacity to accomplish the goals of the initiative and to work toward creating an enduring regional capacity to carry on program activities beyond the initiative's funding period.
2. Insure Kids Now! Celebrates Third Anniversary
On 23 February the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) marked the third anniversary of the Insure Kids Now! program. The Insure Kids Now! national toll-free hotline (1-877 KIDS NOW), used widely in Covering Kids and Covering Kids and Families materials, has received and routed more than 832,000 calls from families inquiring about children's health insurance. The hotline was created jointly in 1999 by the National Governors Association and HRSA. HRSA currently administers the hotline and maintains a national web site which provides links to eligibility and contact information for each state and the District of Columbia: http://www.insurekidsnow.gov
3. New Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Waiver Initiatives
Medicaid and/or CHIP waiver proposals from Arizona, California, and Utah have been approved, others are pending, and more are expected as states look for ways to expand or maintain coverage while balancing their budgets during extremely difficult times. According to this briefing from the Kaiser Family Foundation, federal waivers can give states additional flexibility to expand coverage to new populations, but financing constraints also mean these waivers could be used to reduce benefits, limit enrollment or impose higher cost-sharing for some current and new enrollees. http://www.kff.org/medicaid/4028-index.cfm
4. The Campaign to Leave No Child Behind
The Children's Defense Fund has teamed up with scores of partner groups to mobilize children's advocates all over the country to generate support in Congress for the Act to Leave No Child Behind (S.940 and H.R.1990). Introduced on May 23 by lead sponsors Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Congressman George Miller (D-CA), passage of the Act to Leave No Child Behind will provide each child in America a healthy start, a head start, a safe start, a fair start, and a moral start in life. Among the health-related provisions are:
* creating MediKids--a Medicare-type guarantee of health insurance for all children as Medicare provides coverage for all senior citizens;
* expanding CHIP eligibility levels to 300 percent of the Federal Poverty Level and eligibility age level through 21 years of age;
* improving health services for children enrolled in Medicaid to ensure that all enrolled children receive services through the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment program (EPSDT);
* simplifying outreach and enrollment for Medicaid and CHIP;
* allotting more federal funds to help prevent, treat, and manage childhood asthma and lead poisoning; and
* reducing environmental health risks to children.
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