Yesterday marked the one year anniversary for the signing of Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) by President Obama.
Since the signing of the legislature, an additional 2.6 million uninsured children have gained coverage through the state health programs. Kaiser Health News reports there are currently 40 million children that have coverage through Medicaid and CHIP programs.
There is, however, one slight problem. Some states are finding it hard to maintain current levels of coverage for children, let alone expand the program. There were a total of 19 states that extended their Medicaid and SCHIP programs, but 15 states had to make cuts to their programs.
Even more troubling, Families USA found that 39 states are planning to cut or freeze public program rates in 2010. Fifteen states will increase cost-sharing for Medicaid recipients. And eight states are even considering cutting 1 million people from their programs completely. States alone just cannot handle the financial load of providing for all of the uninsured.
A total of $87 billion in funds was allocated to states for these health care programs from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act last year, but only $25 billion of that is coming out of President Obama’s budget plans this year. That’s not going to be enough to prevent these budget cuts from happening, unfortunately.
Still, adding 2.6 million children onto the ranks of the insured certainly seems like a success — at least politically for President Obama.