Date: Wednesday, April 1, 1998
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: HCFA Press Office (202) 690-6145

HHS APPROVES NEW YORK PLAN TO INSURE MORE CHILDREN

HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced approval of New York's CHPlus plan for children's health insurance, which will provide health coverage for hundreds of thousands of uninsured children.

New York could receive as much as $256 million in new funds, which state officials will use to insure as many as 360,000 children within the next three years. The program is the result of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) -- the historic, bipartisan legislation signed last year by President Clinton. The law allocates $24 billion over the next five years to help states expand health insurance to children whose families earn too much for traditional Medicaid, yet not enough to afford private health insurance.

Shalala also announced approval today of Illinois' CHIP program. New York and Illinois bring to eight the number of states whose CHIP plans have been approved since funding became available Oct. 1, 1997. Together, these eight states anticipate insuring more than one million currently uninsured children within the next three years.

"In just six months, we've reached a significant milestone: states are telling us they plan to insure one million uninsured children, all thanks to the CHIP program. That's a remarkable achievement," Shalala said. "Many of these children come from working families, who play by the rules, but still don't earn enough to afford coverage for their kids. CHIP is bringing healthier lives to America's children, and peace of mind to America's working families."

New York was one of three states in which existing children's health coverage benefit packages were "grandfathered" into the CHIP legislation, along with Florida and Pennsylvania. New York will use its new allocation to expand its existing CHPlus program, which currently provides insurance to 170,000 children up to age 19 whose families have incomes at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level. (The poverty level is $16,450 for a family of four.) CHPlus is a partnership between the state and private insurers with the state subsidizing private coverage for enrollees. The benefit package includes a full range of inpatient and outpatient services.

"The approval of New York's CHIP plan is especially gratifying because of the large number of children who will now have access to health care. New York is ready to move ahead and provide a brighter future for hundreds of thousands of children," said Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which runs the CHIP, Medicaid and Medicare programs.

CHIP gives states three options for devising a plan to cover uninsured children: designing a new children's health insurance program; expanding current Medicaid programs; or a combination of both strategies. HHS must approve each state's plan before CHIP funds become available.

"With CHIP we're doing more than putting an insurance card into parents' hands," said Claude Earl Fox, M.D., M.P.H., acting administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the agency working with HCFA and states to implement CHIP. "We're extending a hand to families, helping them enroll in the new program and put their children into high quality, comprehensive health care that will keep them healthy, learning and growing."

For the first year of the program, allotments totaling $4.3 billion are available to states whose plans are approved by HHS by Sept. 30, 1998. In addition to the eight states which have been approved--Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, California, Illinois and New York--these states and Puerto Rico have submitted plans: Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Tennessee, Illinois, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Oregon, New Jersey, Idaho, Nevada, Vermont and Wisconsin.

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