CHIP feedback positive

Making sure all American children have some type of health insurance is the first step toward more comprehensive health-care reform, state and federal policymakers said Thursday.

"We have to take care of these children, there's really no doubt about it," said U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a national town-hall meeting meant to rally support for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, of which Hatch was an original co-sponsor.

The program, which was signed into law by former President Clinton in August 1997, is up for reauthorization this year. Since its creation, 6 million children nationwide — 112,000 in Utah — have received coverage through the CHIP program.

Primary Children's Medical Center was one of 36 regional sites to participate in the national meeting via satellite. Utah officials encouraged support of federal reauthorization of the program, as well as Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s proposal to increase state CHIP funding by $4.2 million and Medicaid funding for children's coverage by $5.1 million.

Lawmakers last year allocated $10.5 million to the program, which resulted in about $40 million in federal funds.

In Utah, there are some 71,000 uninsured children, according to health-department estimates. Nationally, 9 million children are without health-care coverage.

"The need for CHIP today is greater than ever," said Dr. David Sundwall, executive director of the Utah Department of Health.

At the end of last month, Utah's CHIP program had 33,206 enrollees. The health department estimates that another 24,000 children would qualify for the program if funds were available to provide the coverage.

After 13 months of open enrollment, Utah's CHIP has been closed to new applications since last September.

CHIP is designed to help children whose parents fall between the cracks of Medicaid and private insurance. To qualify for Utah's program, parents' incomes cannot exceed 200 percent of the federal poverty level — about $40,000 for a family of four.

Federal lawmakers who took part in Thursday's town-hall meeting pledged a speedy reauthorization of the program, calling it a "universal success." Several also said they would suggest an expansion of the program, to include pregnant women and parents of CHIP children.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., incoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, pledged to "go as far as we can go" in expanding the program prior to its reauthorization. "We have to find ways of getting more and more Americans" insured, he said.

Without outright opposing a CHIP expansion, Hatch said Congress' first step should be bringing all the currently eligible, but uncovered, children into the program.

"Providing CHIP coverage to these children will be my No. 1 priority during the reauthorization of this program," he said. "We have gone a long way in meeting our goal, but we are clearly not there yet."

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