The CHIP program is beloved. Why is its funding in danger?, By Abby Goodnough and Robert Pear, December 5, 2017, New York Times: “Laquita Gardner, a sales manager at a furniture rental store here, was happy to get a raise recently except for one problem. It lifted her income just enough to disqualify her and her two young sons from Medicaid, the free health insurance program for the poor. She was relieved to find another option was available for the boys: the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, that covers nearly nine million children whose parents earn too much for Medicaid, but not enough to afford other coverage…”
Category: Health
Maternal Mortality
New maternal mortality strategy relies on ‘medical homes’, By Michael Ollove, December 5, 2017, Stateline: “When Hannah White first showed up at the Mountain Area Health Education Center here three years ago, she was in trouble. She was 20 years old, a couple months into her first pregnancy and on the run from an abusive husband in Texas who already had broken her ribs in an attempt, she said, to kill her unborn child. She also has a form of hemophilia which prevents her body from producing platelet granules that stem bleeding. That disease had robbed her of her Malawian mother when Hannah was three months old, which ultimately led to her adoption by American missionaries…”
State Children’s Health Insurance Program
- Millions of poor children could lose health care if Congress doesn’t act soon, By Natasha Rausch, December 1, 2017, Bloomberg: “States from Oregon to Massachusetts are scrambling to help millions of poor families whose children could lose coverage if Congress fails to reinstate a health insurance program that was approved two decades ago with bipartisan support…”
- Two months expired, Children’s Health Insurance awaits approval in a Congress mired in fighting, By Jessica Wehrman, November 29, 2017, Columbus Dispatch: “The federal program that provides health insurance to nearly 9 million low income children — including 219,000 in Ohio — expired two months ago, and states are beginning to panic that they’ll have to cut services to vulnerable families beginning early next year…”
- What happens if Congress doesn’t fund the health insurance used by almost 2 million kids and pregnant women in California?, By Sarah D. Wire, November 29, 2017, Los Angeles Times: “Unless Congress comes to an agreement fast, federal funding for a program that provides health insurance to 2 million California children and pregnant women will run out around the end of the year…”
- Congress has two months to act or 75,000 kids and pregnant women in Colorado will lose health insurance, By John Ingold, November 27, 2017, Denver Post: “In two months, when Alejandra Borunda’s 8-year-old son awakes screaming with one of his regular ear infections, she will pause before deciding whether to take him to a doctor…”
- Texas eager to avoid telling nearly a half-million kids — right before Christmas — that they’ve lost health coverage, By Jackie Wang, November 28, 2017, Dallas News: “Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration is trying to avoid mailing health insurance cancellation notices to nearly half a million children three days before Christmas. Unless it can get $90 million more in federal funding, though, Texas will end its Children’s Health Insurance Program on Jan. 31…”