Children's Health

Top Issues

The state Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is a federally funded program administered by the states that provides health coverage for American children in working families. States design their own CHIP programs and determine policies and eligibility requirements within broad federal guidelines. In 2009, CHIP provided health coverage for 7.4 million children.

Medicaid and CHIP work together to provide health coverage for children in low- and middle-income families. Still, many children do not have health coverage. Currently, just under 8 million American children are uninsured. (Medicaid and CHIP go by different names in different states. Click here for a list of program names.)

This section of our Web site offers up-to-date information on children’s health coverage, including implementation of CHIPRA and the Affordable Care Act.

2012 Federal Poverty Guidelines are now available from HHS, and Families USA has calculated the figures for various household sizes by percentage of the federal poverty level.

From Mathematica Policy Research:

The Narrative Communications Project: Takeaway Findings on a Message-Framing Approach emphasizes the importance of effective communications and messaging by highlighting the successes of state advocates who received grants to help with their messaging strategies. These advocates said that effective messaging helped shift media coverage from focusing on weaknesses in children’s insurance programs to emphasizing how well the programs work. (November 2012)

From the National Academy for State Health Policy:

Supporting Healthy Child Development through Medical Homes: Strategies from ABCD III States describes the experiences of AR, IL, MN, OK, and OR, which are part of the Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD III) learning collaborative. It draws on these states’ experiences with care coordination to outline opportunities and lessons that state policy makers should consider in order to strengthen medical home initiatives in Medicaid. (November 2012)

From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute:

Medicaid/CHIP Participation among Children and Parents finds that eligibility for and participation in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) increased for children from 2008 to 2010, but participation among adults remained low. It includes state-level data on participation rates. (December 2012)

[Return to top]