w Skip Navigation

HHS Secretary Shalala and DOL Secretary Herman Announce Medical Child Support Working Group to Improve Health Insurance Coverage of Children

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala and Labor Secretary Alexis Herman today announced formation of the Medical Child Support Working Group to study and provide recommendations on how to improve the enforcement of medical support obligations for children.

The working group was established by the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998.

"Today, there are still too many children who are without medical insurance because a non- custodial parent is not providing for coverage," said Secretary Shalala. "We're confident this working group will suggest concrete steps to ensure effective enforcement of medical support."

Secretary Herman said, "The mandate for this working group is to analyze the problem and propose solutions. These are the important first steps to increasing health care coverage for children."

Medical support orders, which provide for coverage of children's health care needs, may require non-custodial parents to include their children under the parents' health insurance coverage. Medical support orders may be established and enforced with help of state child support enforcement agencies.

The working group will submit a report to the secretaries of Labor and Health and Human Services by January 2000, recommending measures to improve enforcement of medical support. The secretaries will subsequently submit a report to Congress with recommendations on medical support legislation. The group will also assess the National Medical Support Notice, which is to be issued under interim regulations later this year. The notice will provide a uniform manner to inform employers about the need to enroll a non-custodial parent's child in employer-provided health insurance coverage.

"As the medical support system improves, we will coordinate with the Clinton administration's Medicaid outreach and Children's Health Insurance Program initiative to maximize coverage of the more than 10 million uninsured children in our country," Shalala added.

In addition, the working group is expected to study measures that establish a non-custodial parent's responsibility to share the cost of premiums, co-payments, deductibles, or payments for service not covered under a child's existing health coverage. Other issues to be discussed include the priority of medical support withholding obligations.

Since taking office, the Clinton administration has made child support enforcement a high priority, resulting in a record $14.4 billion in estimated collections for fiscal year 1998, an 80 percent increase from 1992. Paternity establishment rose to nearly 1.3 million in 1997, an increase of over 250 percent, from 516,000 in 1992. The new child support enforcement measures included in the new welfare reform law are projected to increase collections by billions over the next 10 years.

Named by the secretaries to co-chair the working group are David Gray Ross, commissioner of HHS' Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and Robert Doyle, director of the Office of Regulations and Interpretations at Labor's Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA). PWBA administers the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which oversees approximately 2.6 million health benefit plans provided by private sector employers.

Also named to the working group from HHS are Paul Legler, deputy commissioner of OCSE; Rachel Block, deputy director, Center for Medicaid and State Operations from the Health Care Financing Administration; and Linda Mellgren in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. The Labor Department's other representatives are David Lurie, also in the Office of Regulations and Interpretations at PWBA, and Susan Rees, a staff attorney, Plan Benefits Security Division, Office of the Solicitor.

The working group was created under the rules governing the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and all meetings of the full committee will be public. The first meeting of the group is from March 3 to 5.

Other members of the working group and the categories they represent are:

State IV-D Directors and Medical Child Support Programs:

Sallie H. Hunt, commissioner, Bureau of Child Support Enforcement, HHR, West Virginia Richard Harris, director, Division of Child Support Enforcement, DHS, Mississippi Lee Sapienza, director, Program Operations Unit, Office of Child Support Enforcement, DSS, New York Gaye McQueen, Child Support Enforcement Officer, Department of Social and Health Services, Washington

State Medicaid Directors:

Mary Fontaine, director, Benefit Coordination & Recoveries, Medicaid, Massachusetts Kay Keeshan, director, Third Party Division, Medicaid, Alabama

Robert Stampfly, director, Managed Care Support Division, Michigan

Employers and Human Resource and Payroll Professionals:

Anthony Knetel, ERISA Industry Committee

Cornelia Gamlen, Society for Human Resource Management
Rita Zeidner, American Payroll Association
Theodore Earl, John Hancock, Inc.

Plan Administrators and Plan Sponsors of Group Health Plans:

Elizabeth Ysla Leight, Society of Professional Benefit Administrators Howard Bard, National Coordinating Committee for Multi-Employer Plans Terry Humo, Association of Private Pension & Welfare Plans

Lela Foremen, Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO
Nell Hennessy, American Bar Association

Child Advocacy Organizations:

Nancy Ebb, Children's Defense Fund

Paula Roberts, Center for Law and Social Policy
R. Ann Fallon, attorney-at-law
S. Kay Farley, National Center for State Courts
Jeffrey Johnson, National Center for Strategic Non-Profit Planning & Community Leadership Kristina Firvida, National Women's Law Center

Organization Representing State Child Support Programs:

Kelly D. Thompson, National Child Support Enforcement Association

###

Note: HHS press releases are available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.hhs.gov.