State Children's Health Insurance Program

This Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded paper by Robert Berenson and Nicole Cafarella provides a status report on the Innovation Center's activities to date—including delineating the goals envisioned by Congress, detailing the new tools it was given, and emphasizing how the enhanced authority compares with CMS’s traditional demonstration programs. The paper describes the Center's major initiatives to date, including those that address primary care redesign, bundled payments, ACOs, dual-eligible beneficiaries, and the health care system's capacity for spreading innovative ideas. The authors note that some observers have expressed concern that the Innovation Center's fast-paced approach may be overwhelming to smaller delivery systems.

When the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented, it will extend health insurance coverage to many uninsured adult Americans. New analysis projects that the ACA will also cut the number of uninsured children by about 40 percent and the number of uninsured parents by almost 50 percent, provided states continue their Medicaid and CHIP coverage for children. However, if the maintenance of effort requirement is rescinded and if Congress does not continue funding CHIP, the uninsurance rate for children could be higher than it is today.

The Immigrant Access to Health and Human Services study maps and describes the policy context that can affect immigrant access to health and human services and the well-being of immigrants and their children. This paper summarizes federal provisions and key aspects of state-level variation related to immigrants' eligibility for TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, and CHIP based on a review of literature and the latest information. It provides a building block for the fieldwork and in-depth assessment of the policy context around immigrant access to health and human services.

This latest edition of our annual chartbook series for New York State features detailed information about differences in insurance coverage and uninsurance around New York State and within New York City. Overall, 12.9 percent of New Yorkers (889,000 total) under the age of 65 lacked health insurance in 2009, unchanged from the previous year despite an ongoing recession. Data for 14 separate regions across New York State, including the five boroughs of New York City and for 55 separate neighborhoods within the city itself show enormous variation in health insurance coverage across the state.

This report provides detailed demographic information on Virginia's uninsured population in 2009, including data on their income, employment status, race, ethnicity, age and citizenship, and region of residence. Between 2008 and 2009, 47,000 nonelderly adults in Virginia became newly uninsured, though there was no significant change in the number of uninsured children, due in part to increased coverage through Medicaid and CHIP. Overall, 13.2 percent of Virginians (889,000 total) under the age of 65 lacked health insurance in 2009. The majority of Virginia's uninsured are US citizens and live in working families, but most are in low-income families.