Human Services News

Urban Institute:

This brief uses the 2005 Current Population Survey to examine national patterns of coverage among families with SCHIP eligible children.

Key findings are that: close to 2 million uninsured children are eligible for SCHIP, the majority of SCHIP enrollees could not be enrolled in an employer plan that covers their parents, and almost 40% of SCHIP enrollees lives with an uninsured parent.

This implies that federal funding will have to be increased substantially to cover the remaining eligible but uninsured children and that many children stand to lose coverage altogether if federal funds are inadequate to meet existing program needs.

Because of concerns that SCHIP would substitute for---or crowd out---private coverage, the SCHIP statute precluded states from covering children enrolled in employer coverage and required that states implement mechanisms to prevent SCHIP from substituting for employer coverage.

Since SCHIP was enacted, uninsurance rates have fallen among children, particularly low-income children, but progress appears to have stalled in recent years (Kenney and Yee forthcoming).

The analysis simulates eligibility for both SCHIP and Medicaid, taking into account the eligibility rules in each state and using the information available on the CPS related to the child's age, household structure, and family income.

We examine the insurance coverage distribution of children who meet the income eligibility requirements for SCHIP, assessing how many remain uninsured and variation in participation rates.