Monday, 26 November 2007
California SCHIP Programs Running Out Of Money
Next June, California will exhaust its federal funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). But state healthcare officials have to decide in the next two weeks if they will stop SCHIP enrollment and notify around 56,600 families that their children will lose coverage.
Even though the funding will stop next summer, the state will have to cut children off of coverage by December 31, reported the San Francisco Chronicle.
California's Healthy Families is one of the largest SCHIP programs in the country — with approximately 835,000 children enrolled. Medi-Cal, also funded by SCHIP, covers an additional 250,000 children and 8,000 pregnant women.
Officials say that these programs need $1.2 billion for fiscal year 2008 to continue enrollment at the current pace. But the continued SCHIP stalemate between the U.S. Congress and the White House has left the SCHIP programs about $265 million short.
If funding from U.S. Congress doesn’t meet the state’s needs, then California’s SCHIP programs might be forced to drop almost 600,000 children off coverage.
State officials are still trying to figure out what action to take in the coming funding shortfalls. One option to ensure the program stays alive is to drop children off coverage. Another option is to continue with regular operations and keep enrolling children, hoping the funding comes along. But if it doesn’t or falls flat, then every child will lose coverage on June when the SCHIP programs shut down.
“These are horrible options. We never thought we were going to be in this place,” said Lesley Cummings, manager of Healthy Families.
California’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board will meet on December 5 to decide what to do.
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