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Poor oral health has important implications for the healthy development of children. Children in Medicaid, especially Latinos and African Americans, experience high rates of tooth decay, yet they visit dentists less often than privately insured children. Even Latino and African American children with private insurance are less likely than white children to visit dentists and have longer intervals between dental visits. Furthermore, Latino and African American children in Medicaid are more likely than white children in Medicaid to have longer intervals between visits. These findings raise concerns about Medicaid's ability to address disparities in dental care access and, more broadly, in health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keeping children who are eligible for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrolled in these programs remains an important policy challenge. An earlier study showed that one-third of all uninsured children in 2006 had been enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP the previous year. Updated results show that in 2008, children enrolled in Medicaid were somewhat more likely to remain in the program than in 2006. However, more than a quarter of all uninsured children in 2008 had been enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP the year before. In other words, roughly two million children became uninsured in 2008, despite their ongoing eligibility for these programs. It is possible that fewer children may also be enrolling in public programs since 2006 because of requirements that their U.S. citizenship status be documented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with private health insurance are more than six and a half times as likely to lose coverage in the three months after one or both of their parents loses a job, compared to children whose parents remain employed. In the current economic environment, this finding is especially troubling. We estimate that for every 1,000 jobs lost, 311 privately insured children lose coverage and more than 45 percent of the poorest and most vulnerable of privately insured children became uninsured. Much more effort is needed to quickly enroll children in public health insurance programs when their parents suffer a job loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current health reform debate is greatly concerned with bending the curve" of cost growth and containing costs, particularly in public programs. Our research demonstrates that spending in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is highly concentrated, particularly among children with chronic health problems. Ten percent of enrollees (two-thirds of whom have a chronic condition) account for 72 percent of the spending; 30 percent of enrolled children receive little or no care. These results highlight the importance of cost containment strategies that reduce avoidable hospitalizations among children with chronic problems and policies that increase preventive care, particularly among African American children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although interest in expanding SCHIP coverage to parents has grown over the past five years, few such expansions have actually been implemented. State governments and health plan administrators remain concerned that these expansions will attract only high-risk enrollees, resulting in costly premiums that require large subsidies. We examine characteristics of enrollees in an SCHIP-like expansion program in Alameda County, California. According to our survey data, the program did not experience unfavorable selection. Rather, it attracted a broad range of eligible adults. Enrollees were comparable to the overall low-income population in Alameda County in terms of age, health status, and various utilization measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research based on the Community Tracking Study (CTS) showed that while coverage expansions through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) greatly increased children's eligibility for public or private health insurance coverage, uninsurance rates remained unchanged because of low take-up by eligible children. However, more recent data show that this is changing. Children's uninsurance rates decreased sharply between 1999 and 2001; these changes were greatest in communities where take-up rates have traditionally been the lowest and uninsurance rates the highest. Although uninsurance rates still can be decreased further, state budget pressures threaten the momentum toward higher participation in public programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), passed by Congress in 1997, has been implemented by states in many different forms, thus creating many natural experiments about insurance coverage for low-income children. In Georgia, SCHIP children are enrolled in a Medicaid look-alike program, PeachCare for Kids, with nearly the same administrative rules and providers as in the Medicaid program. Comparing the experiences of PeachCare and Medicaid children thus allows us to examine the impact of population differences on utilization and satisfaction. We find that Medicaid children, controlling for many demographic characteristics, report both less use of services and lower satisfaction with services used. Evidence presented here supports three possible explanations for these differences: Medicaid families are less familiar with and supportive of systems requiring use of an assigned primary care physician, the families face more nonprogram barriers to using care, and physicians have different responses to the two programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the influence of economic factors on the employment-based health insurance for children in the United States. Factors contributing to the increase in employment-based health plan for children; Impact of employment-based coverage for children on the Children's Health Insurance Program; Analysis on employment-based coverage of nonwhites.

Evaluates the Children's Health Insurance Program's (CHIP) impact on children's access to health insurance and health services in the United States. Background on children's health insurance; Opportunities and challenges for CHIP; Recommendations for a set of indicators and monitoring approaches; Policy considerations associated with such a strategy.

Investigates eligibility and enrollment in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in the United States. Simulation of CHIP eligibility and enrollment; Use of Medicaid participation to project CHIP enrollment; Implications for state health insurance policy making.

The article focuses on economic and health disparities in which Durham County, North Carolina and Duke of North Carolina are striving to overcome the issue. It mentions that people who are enrolled on the Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are being provided by the Community Care of North Carolina (CCNC) with a care management. It states that a data system for capturing emergency departments was built by Durham Community Health Network (DCHN). It says that the Medicaid In-Home Aide Service will be implemented to evaluate the function of personal care assistants. It adds that the education of clinicians, funds and data information sharing, and reorientation of research agenda are the key steps on the development of linking system of the community.

Examines the effectiveness of state measurements of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in the United States. Congress' requirements to states participating in the program; Accuracy of measurements; CHIP's impact on rates of coverage; Comparison of state data.

The article discusses the development on the move by the federal government to fight against health care fraud on Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in the U.S.

The article offers information on the provision under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which mandates providers and suppliers to participate in Medicare, Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) compliance programs.

Despite two consecutive years of declines in the number of uninsured Americans at the end of the 1990s boom, essentially the same percentage of the U.S. population was uninsured in 2000 as was in 1994—about 17 percent. This analysis of Census Bureau data by John Holahan and Mary Beth Pohl explores the trends in insurance coverage during a period of economic expansion in the 1990s. More Americans fell under the umbrella of employer coverage as job rolls expanded and economic prosperity pulled many families up the income ladder. As the low-income population dropped by 8.2 million and the middle- and high- income populations rose by 2 million and 19.2 million, respectively, the employer coverage rate climbed from 64.2 percent to 67.3 percent. But that expansion masked declines in other types of coverage. Enrollment in Medicaid and other state-sponsored insurance programs declined because of welfare reform and the improving economy; many low-income people obtained higher-paying jobs and received coverage from their employers. Enrollment in private nongroup insurance products also fell, which the authors attribute to problems in the individual insurance market, as well as expansion in employer coverage. The authors also focus on the decline in the number of uninsured persons between 1999 and 2000. This reduction has been attributed to the continued expansion of employer coverage. However, increases in this coverage for adults were offset by declines in other kinds of coverage. Because public coverage for children also increased, seemingly because of the new State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), there was a reduction in the number of uninsured children and an overall decline in the number of uninsured persons-children and adults. The authors warn that if a period of great economic expansion can't budge the uninsurance rate, rising premiums and higher unemployment rates could reduce employer coverage and raise the number of uninsured. How many newly uninsured persons there are depends on whether and how much Medicaid enrollment and private nongroup coverage increase. John Holahan is director of the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center, and Mary Beth Pohl is a research assistant there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]