Selected States Have a New Opportunity to Use More of Their SCHIP Funds for Outreach: Roughly 23 States Now Have More Than $100 Million in Federal SCHIP Matching Funds Available To Help Boost Enrollment

States originally had until September 30, 2000 to spend their first year of funds under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) or else lose any unspent funds. Funds remaining unused after 3 years were to be reallocated to states that had spent their SCHIP funds before the deadlin...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Broaddus, Matthew, Guyer, Jocelyn, Ross, Donna Cohen
Format Report
LanguageEnglish
Published 27.04.2001
Subjects
Budgeting
Child Health
Children
Childrens Health Insurance Program
Federal Legislation
Financial Support
Health Insurance
Outreach Programs
State Programs
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Summary:States originally had until September 30, 2000 to spend their first year of funds under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) or else lose any unspent funds. Funds remaining unused after 3 years were to be reallocated to states that had spent their SCHIP funds before the deadline. Only 12 states met the deadline, with many states reporting that they needed more time to design/initiate programs and to conduct outreach. In response, Congress passed the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act (BIPA) in December, 2000. Under this law, the 12 states that met the deadline received some reallocated funds, while the remaining 39 states were allowed to retain a share of their unspent funds. BIPA also created an option whereby the 39 states allowed to retain some of their unspent first-year SCHIP funds could spend up to 10 percent of these funds on outreach. After providing background on the SCHIP financing structure, this paper describes the modified reallocation process that Congress adopted in BIPA for unspent first-year SCHIP funds, the new 10 percent outreach option, and the accounting rules that may limit the ability of some states to take advantage of the option. The paper also contains state-by-state tables listing the states likely to be able to take advantage of the new outreach funding option, as well as rough estimates of the amount likely to be available for outreach in each of these states. The paper concludes by noting that for states with unspent SCHIP funds, BIPA extends their opportunity to use a share of these funds to provide health benefits to children. In addition, at least 23 states will be able to use federal SCHIP matching funds to strengthen and expand their outreach efforts. (KB)