NACHC Lauds Expansion of Health Insurance for Children
Washington, D.C. The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) applauds Congressional passage of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (SCHIPRA 2009). The legislation will expand the children’s health insurance program and enable health centers to improve and expand primary care services to children.
“On behalf of America’s Health Centers, we thank our leaders in Congress for responding directly to the health care needs of children, “ said Dan Hawkins, Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at NACHC. “As the health care homes and family doctors to nearly 6.5 million children – nearly 400,000 of whom are enrolled in SCHIP -- health centers deeply appreciate provisions in this legislation that will enable them to expand and improve care for SCHIP beneficiaries. In these uncertain and very troubling times for our economy, keeping families and children healthy is the right medicine for our country.”
President Obama signed CHIPRA 2009 into law today. The bill passed the Senate last week by a bipartisan vote of 66 to 32, and cleared the House by a bipartisan vote of 289-139. The legislation creates a prospective payment system (PPS) for health centers in SCHIP similar to the payment system established by the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 (BIPA). Under the health center Medicaid PPS, the state Medicaid agency pays for the care at a health center on a prospective basis and then the state gets a federal match from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The creation of such a payment for SCHIP patients allows health centers to provide and expand primary care services to more SCHIP beneficiaries, while ensuring adequate financial stability for health centers. The bill also overturns a 5-year ban on eligibility for children who are legal immigrants, and it directs the HHS Secretary to develop a model process for interstate coordination of Medicaid/CHIP enrollment and coverage of eligible individuals, such as farmworkers and disaster evacuees, who move from state to state – a clear response to NACHC and other advocates who have called for such action over the past several years.
“We and our partners have actively worked on ways to improve equity and access for children of migrant and seasonal farm workers who are seen at health centers across multiple states,” explained Hawkins. “One of the largest barriers to care for farm workers is that their Medicaid benefits are not portable as they move from state to state, harvesting our nation’s food. We are most pleased with this response.”
Health centers and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) advance access to health care for the nation’s most medically vulnerable populations. Created in 1997, SCHIP is designed to establish health insurance coverage for uninsured children from families whose incomes are too low to afford private insurance but too high to qualify for Medicaid. The program is financed jointly by the federal government and the states, and it is administered by the states within broad federal guidelines. States can provide SCHIP coverage by expanding Medicaid to children not eligible for that program, creating a separate program under SCHIP, or using a combination of the two approaches. In 2008, more than 7.4 million children were enrolled in SCHIP. The passage of SCHIPRA 2009 will enable states to cover an additional 4 million uninsured children by 2013.
Health centers are community-directed providers of high quality, cost-effective primary and preventive health care, and serve over 18 million traditionally hard to reach patients. Over 90% of health center patients are low income and 71% of patients have family income levels at or below poverty. You can also learn more about the health center specific provisions here.
