Group hopes brochure will get word out about CHIP

With so much news about what's wrong with the way health care works, the state's leading child advocacy group and the Legislature's speaker of the House took a few minutes Wednesday morning to point out that at least one program is good and getting better.

The only problem with the Children's Health Insurance Program is the 70,000 or so Utah children who qualify for the plan aren't being signed up for it, said Rep. Greg Curtis, R-Sandy.

Curtis, along with Voices for Utah Children, hopes to raise awareness of the joint state and federal insurance coverage for kids by publishing a 28-page brochure of personal stories of 10 families who say CHIP is providing necessary medical services they otherwise couldn't afford.

"As far as policy making goes, the Legislature has done all we can to make sure CHIP is on as solid a foundation that we can provide," Curtis said Wednesday after a news conference at the Capitol announcing the release of the new brochure. "Our hope is that folks who have the front-line interaction with our kids — physicians, teachers, church leaders — will help get the word out that this program provides access to basic care that a lot of us take for granted but is so vital to the well-being of our kids now and critical in becoming healthy adults in the future."

This past general session, lawmakers approved legislation proposed by Curtis and Senate President John Valentine that removed the enrollment cap on CHIP and requires the state Department of Health to allow families to sign up at any time and to make sure that eligible families get enrolled.

Removing the cap came on the heels of a $4 million appropriation approved by lawmakers in 2007.

Fellow lawmakers and legislative leadership 10 years ago didn't initially support having the qualifying income set at 200 percent of the federal poverty level and implemented a cap to lower financial risk, Curtis said.

"But on several occasions, I had families that qualified tell me they had to wait until enrollment was reopened," he said. "Closing enrollment solved a problem for the state but created one for people with sick kids who needed attention immediately. I felt that making care available is more important and that we as a Legislature and a community owe that to these kids."

Karen Crompton, executive director of Voices, said when children are uninsured, families have to delay or forgo immunizations, preventative screenings and treatments for chronic conditions such as diabetes or acute conditions like a case of the flu.