Arizona running out of funds for a children’s health insurance program
Oct 30, 2017, 4:00 AM | Updated: 11:20 am
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
PHOENIX — Arizona is among a handful of states predicted to soon run out of money to keep a children’s health insurance program running after Congress failed to extend funding, a new report found.
The report by the Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families finds Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon could run out of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by the end of the year or early in January.
This comes after Congress failed to meet the September 30th deadline to extend federal funding for the program, leaving states to figure out how to keep the program running without assistance from the federal government.
In Arizona, the program is known as KidsCare and is administered through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). The state recently received some funding from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to help keep KidsCare running.
“We expect will be able to support the program through at least November maybe into December as well,” said Heidi Capriotti, spokeswoman for AHCCCS. “It just depends on enrollment numbers.”
“If we get to the point where that funding is exhausted, then it will be up to our local policymakers and legislators to decide how to continue the program,” she added.
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on legislation to extend funding for CHIP. If that doesn’t happen, Capriotti said those currently benefiting from KidsCare will receive letters notifying them of any changes to the program.
“Should we come to that point, we’d hope to give them at least 30-days notice of any changes,” she said.
An estimated 23,000 children have health insurance through KidsCare. Nationwide, nine million children have health insurance through the program, which is designed for children whose families make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford paying the premiums and out-of-pocket costs of private or marketplace insurance.
To qualify, families must make between 138 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s an annual income of about $27,000 to nearly $41,000 for a family of three in Arizona.
Dana Wolfe Naimark, president and CEO of the Children’s Action Alliance, said KidsCare allows parents to have the security of knowing they can afford healthcare coverage for their children. It also allows children to see a doctor on a regular basis, she said.
“That means children can get checkups, they can get vaccines, they can get prescriptions and treatment when they need it and not wait until issues get worse, and they end up in the emergency room,” she said.
Inaction by Congress could lead to an enrollment freeze similar to what happened in 2010, when Arizona state legislators froze KidsCare enrollment to cut state spending. At the time, the state was paying for a portion of the program. KidsCare was restored in 2016, and now the federal government funds it entirely.
Naimark said an enrollment freeze would “take Arizona backwards.”
“We’re at historic highs of the percentage of our children with health care coverage – that’s a shared goal,” she said. “That’s where we want to be. We don’t want to go backwards.”
