1. Low- and No-Cost Children's Health Insurance Fill Health Care Gap Programs that provide low- and no-cost health insurance for children can bridge the gap between families that qualify for Medicaid and those who can afford private insurance or have employer-sponsored coverage, Reuters reports. About nine million children are uninsured but are in families whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid. According to Al Rohling of the Alabama Child Caring Foundation, which provides no-cost coverage for children through BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama, "Health care for children really is a bridge to get out of poverty." Reuters reports that parents are more likely to forgo needed medical care for uninsured children because of cost issues, which can lead to missed work time for the parent if a child's illness worsens. Rohling, who helped form the foundation, said that people need annual incomes of about 300% of the federal poverty level to afford private insurance, but that many states provide coverage only to those with incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty level. According to Rohling, programs such as the one offered by the Child Caring Foundation "fill the void between affordability and eligibility." About 90% of foundation beneficiaries switch to private insurance within about 30 months, Reuters reports. Jennifer Tolbert, a principal analyst for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, said the number of uninsured children in the U.S. has increased since 2004. Tolbert said it is possible that the federal government could expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover more children when Congress considers reauthorizing the program this year. [Kaiser Network Daily Report, 01/04/07] 2. Leading Child Health Groups Present Key Priorities for CHIP Reauthorization The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), March of Dimes, and National Association of Children's Hospitals (NACH) joined the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families to release a report identifying key issues that must be addressed in reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). They also called on federal policymakers to make CHIP reauthorization a top 2007 priority in the 110th Congress. "CHIP has achieved remarkable progress, and we want to strengthen it for the future," said AAP President Jay E. Berkelhamer. "To date, it has resulted in more children having a usual source of health care, receiving preventive care and immunizations, and reducing unmet need for dental care." CHIP now covers more than 6 million children a year, according to the report, "Too Close to Turn Back: Covering America's Children." The report presents data showing that CHIP and its larger companion program Medicaid have driven down the uninsured rate among low-income children by one-third. According to the groups, the key measures of success for CHIP reauthorization are providing needed CHIP funding, protecting and strengthening Medicaid, eliminating enrollment barriers, and promoting quality initiatives. The report calls on Congress to ensure that CHIP has funding needed to cover more children, eliminate red-tape barriers to child health coverage, and address quality and accountability of child health coverage. "In the nearly 10 years since enactment of CHIP, the world of quality and performance measures in health care has opened up dramatically," said Lawrence A. McAndrews, president and chief executive officer of NACH. "However, there's been little federal investment in quality and performance measures for children's health care. It's time to do that for kids, through both CHIP and Medicaid." American voters say more needs to be done to expand and secure children's health insurance. Eighty-two percent of voters said they want Congress to add new funds to CHIP and two-thirds of these voters want Congress to provide enough funding to allow states to enroll more children in CHIP, according to an election-eve survey conducted by Lake Research Associates for the Center for Children and Families. Recognizing that CHIP stands on the shoulders of Medicaid, the groups identify keeping Medicaid strong as a key priority for CHIP reauthorization. "Together, working in partnership, CHIP and Medicaid have been resoundingly successful in lowering the uninsured rate among children despite rising health care costs and job market dynamics that have pushed up the number of uninsured adults," said Cindy Mann, executive director of the Center for Children and Families. Congress must also eliminate barriers that prevent eligible children from getting coverage. New approaches, such as offering performance-based assistance with coverage costs to states successful in covering uninsured children, can help keep the nation moving in the right direction. "According to the Current Population Survey, 49 percent of all uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid and 19 percent are eligible for CHIP. States must be given the tools and resources needed to enroll all eligible children in both programs," said Dr. Jennifer L. Howse, president of the March of Dimes. Since its inception in 1997, CHIP has been the most successful health care reform Congress has undertaken in the last 10 years and the program has enjoyed a strong bipartisan support among congressional lawmakers, the nation's governors as well as voters. The incoming 110th Congress is slated to reauthorize the CHIP law which is scheduled to expire 09/30/07. 3. Louisiana: Health Insurance for Children Discussed Thousands of children living without health insurance in Louisiana are actually eligible for free insurance. According to the Department of Health and Hospitals report from the 2005 Health Insurance Survey, of the estimated 125,000 uninsured children in the state, almost 91,000 are living below 200 percent of the federal poverty level and are eligible for the state's free insurance program. About 9,000 of those children live in northwest Louisiana. It's a number that reflects an outreach effort that dropped the number of insured children in the region from a high of more than 20,000 in 2003. But identifying and targeting those children who don't have health insurance is just part of the issue and the solution, say local health-care advocates participating in a National Town Hall Meeting for Children's Health Coverage on Thursday hosted by Christus Schumpert Sutton Children's Medical Center. "Over and over again we hear they haven't heard about it, or people just don't want to be part of a government program," said Betty Stanley, a supervisor with the state's Medicaid/LaCHIP program, "There seems to be a stigma attached to it. And even when the parents enroll, we can't force them to take their children to the doctor, and we see that too." Caddo Parish schools nurse supervisor Bridget Causey agrees. "There are so many scenarios that can hinder a family. Maybe the parents forget to re-enroll, or they only enrolled one child and not the others," said Causey, who goes through about 24,000 enrollment forms each year. "There should be some way of reducing paperwork." [Mary Jimenez, Shreveport Times, 01/12/07]