Organization enrolls children in state-run health insurance program

It's that time of year. The time you start thinking about getting the kids to school on time, packing lunches and helping with homework.

The Covering Kids and Families organization hopes parents think about their children's health insurance, too.

Volunteers with Covering Kids and Families have been out in the community for several weeks, trying to get more children enrolled in the state-run Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which covers children up to age 19 in low-income families. The program offers medical, dental and vision coverage.

"Families don't realize they are income-eligible (for state programs)," said Kristi Carson, the Ada County outreach worker for Covering Kids and Families.

Even more children will be eligible this year after state lawmakers eliminated the so-called asset test, a rule that looked at a family's assets before determining whether their children were eligible. About 600 children were denied coverage under CHIP last year because of the asset test, which limited family assets such as savings or stocks to less than $5,000, according to the state Department of Health and Welfare.

CHIP is designed to help working poor families who earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid. Two CHIP programs serve about 13,000 Idaho children a year:

The CHIP B program does not offer as much coverage as CHIP A, which offers the same benefits as Medicaid. Under CHIP B, parents also must pay a monthly $15 premium per child.

--CHIP-A, for families that earn up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that's $2,500 a month, or $30,000 a year.

--CHIP-B, for families that earn between 150 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level. For a family of four, that's $3,083.33 a month, or $37,000 a year.

Carson has been manning booths at the Western Idaho Fair, the Kuna Library and free clinics in the county to reach out to parents who might not have insurance for their children.

"I'm extremely surprised at how many people I run into that think that the programs are no longer available," Carson said. "That's a big problem."

Covering Kids and Families, a nonprofit organization that works to reduce the number of uninsured children in the United States, launches an annual back-to-school campaign in each state during August and September, a time when parents are normally filling out paperwork. The group is partially funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a national organization focused on health care quality and coverage.