All Healthy Children Act Would Improve Health Coverage for SD Kids
Sioux Falls, SD - A new proposal that would merge the State Children‚s Health Insurance Program and Medicaid is up for consideration in Congress this month. The All Healthy Children Act has strong support from child advocacy groups who say it‚s the logical step in closing the child health insurance gap. Comments from Marian Wright Edelman (ED-ell-man), founder and president of the Children‚s Defense Fund, and Paula Hallberg, director of policy for the Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas.
Congress is considering expanding and blending the existing children‚s health insurance programs to ensure all kids have quality health coverage. The All Healthy Children Act is getting high marks from child advocacy groups who say it fill the gap between low and moderate income children going without coverage now. Children's Defense Fund president Marian Wright Edelman says changes are needed.
(Edelman Voice) "There are 9 million, over 9 million, uninsured children in America. Ninety percent of all uninsured children live in working households, people playing by the rules, can't make ends meet."
Paula Hallberg with the Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas says statistically, kids who have healthcare coverage are better prepared to learn in school.
(Hallberg Voice) "Most children in America's classrooms who are uninsured are eligible for the Children's Health Insurance Program. And if we can get those people on coverage and they get in for that early preventive care, in the long run they're going to be better off and in the long run it's going to save a lot of money."
Hallberg says there has been good participation in the CHIP program in South Dakota, but that more needs to be done to ensure all children are covered. She says that South Dakota has been fortunate to be one of the few states not experience funding cuts.
(Hallberg Voice) "We've been able to maintain the integrity of when the program was first started and we're still able to serve children at 200 percent of poverty level and less."
The proposed program would be administered by the states with enhanced federal financial support for expansions and improvements to cover all children. Families with incomes over 300 percent of the federal poverty level could buy coverage for their children through the program, and it would cover all medically necessary health services.