Sign-ups for new kids’ insurance program extended
BOISE – So few people signed up for a new subsidized children’s health insurance program last week that the state Health and Welfare Department is scheduling another open enrollment period.
Two new expansions of the Children’s Health Insurance Program – CHIP B and the Access Card – can accommodate at least 5,600 uninsured Idaho kids. But Health and Welfare spokesman Ross Mason said during the initial sign-up, the state received applications for about 2,600 kids, and about half weren’t eligible, either because their families exceeded income guidelines or they already had insurance.
The first sign-up period, lasting just over a week, caught some unawares.
“Part of the reason we had that small window was we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Mason said. “We did not want to get swamped with kids and have to turn people away. We’ve learned some stuff from the first go-round, and we know we can expand that enrollment period.”
Karen Cotton, a project manager for North Idaho Partners in Care at Kootenai Medical Center, said, “There just wasn’t a lot of information.”
She’s hopeful the next enrollment period, set for Sept. 1 to Sept. 14, will be more successful.
“We know we hear from people who say, ‘Gosh, I just make a little bit more,’ or ‘I just got a raise and it bumped me off of CHIP,’ ” she said. “Our enrollment eligibility level, at 150 percent of poverty, is one of the lowest in the nation, so clearly we know there are people out there.”
The two new programs will cover children in families making up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that’s up to $34,872. For that same family to qualify for regular CHIP, it couldn’t make more than $28,275.
The CHIP B and Access Card programs provide lower levels of coverage than standard CHIP or Medicaid, and families pay part of the cost. CHIP B has slightly less coverage than regular CHIP and families pay $15 per child per month. The Access Card is a program that subsidizes private insurance for children with a $100-per-child monthly premium subsidy, up to $300 per family.
Mason said the new programs are aimed at working families who can’t afford insurance, including those who can’t afford to take advantage of employer-sponsored insurance but could with the subsidy. But it’s not for families that already have insurance for their kids.
“You can’t just turn around drop the insurance and then climb on board,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way. Otherwise, we’d have people dropping insurance all the time – we don’t want them to do that.”
The aim of both new programs is to cover more uninsured kids, Mason said. “We certainly encourage families to get their kids insured. A healthy kid is going to make a healthy adult.”
Cotton said families that are eligible for CHIP B and the Access Card aren’t likely to know about the programs.
“This is geared to people who are working, who aren’t typically engaged with Health and Welfare, they don’t normally go into the Health and Welfare office,” she said. “That’s why I think it’s more difficult to reach these families. These are families that are working and have health insurance through their work. They wouldn’t even think that they would qualify for another type of program… . We’re really marketing to another segment of the working population.”
Cotton said she spoke with an insurance broker who said he hadn’t had time to notify small employers about the new option during the brief first sign-up window. “So he’s hoping now there’ll be more time, he’ll be able to contact his businesses,” she said.
Mason said the September sign-up window also will fall when children are returning to school and families are back from vacation, and that may make it more successful.
Also, Cotton said it will benefit from following a grant-funded promotion in August sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to get eligible children signed up for all government-sponsored health insurance programs.