1. Check Out Washington's TEC-Trial Eligibility Calculator Answer a few simple questions and the TEC computer program gives you an idea of whether you might be eligible for DSHS benefits. It also has a "click here" map with office listings so you know where to go for help. 2. Some States with Web Sites Listing Enrollment Data Hawaii New York Pennsylvania 3. Immunization: Calling the Shots A new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences calls for increasing funding by $175 million a year over current spending to improve the U.S. immunization system's critical infrastructure and to better integrate public and private vaccination efforts. 4. CHIP Funding: Use It or Lose It Even as hundreds of thousands of poor kids were losing their health insurance as a result of welfare reform, most states failed to spend money specifically set aside to keep that from happening, according to Claire Nolan's news analysis for Stateline (stateline.org). Spotting these yet unspent dollars, the Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved action that removes unspent funds available to states to provide health insurance to uninsured children, with the promise to restore them in FY 2003. But there is resistance--according to the Children's Defense Fund, Senators Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Bayh (D-Ind.) are asking their Senate colleagues to sign a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee objecting to the removal of $1.9 billion of the FY 1998 CHIP funds. 5. Go Directly to Work, Do Not Collect Health Insurance: Low-Income Parents Lose Medicaid Texas, which disqualifies parents from Medicaid if they work more than 18 hours a week, has the highest percentage drops in parents' Medicaid coverage. Overall nearly a million low-income working parents in 15 states have lost their Medicaid coverage, usually as they moved from welfare to work, according to a Families USA report. 6. Extending Medicaid to Parents: A Strategy for Reducing the Number of Uninsured This Urban Institute brief analyzes existing statute and mechanisms that states could use to expand insurance coverage for low-income parents. 7. New Report on U.S. Health Statistics With a Focus on Adolescent Health 26 July 2000--The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a comprehensive report on the nation's health, featuring a special section on the health of adolescents 10 to 19 years of age. The Adolescent Health Chart Book measures the status of adolescents in a variety of categories including access to routine health care, frequency of emergency room visits, frequency of cigarette smoking, and amount of physical activity. "We all know that adolescence is a challenging time for teens and for their families," said CDC Director Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD, MPH. "We need this information to help our youngsters move through adolescence to become healthy adults." The findings state: * During 1995-97, adolescents made about 11.6 million emergency department visits each year. Approximately one-half of these visits were for injuries. Injury-related and noninjury-related visit rates increased with age; * In 1997, 17 percent of adolescents had no health care coverage. One-third of adolescents in families with income below the FPL were uninsured compared with 8 percent of adolescents in families with income greater than two times the FPL; and * In 1997, the percent of adolescents who had not had a health care visit in the past year was 2.6 times higher for those without health insurance as for those with health insurance. To view the full report on U.S. health statistics, including the Adolescent Chart Book, go to CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.