If children in California's CHIP program moved to Medicaid, some would benefit and others would suffer, but the balance of gain and loss is unknown. The poorest such children are most likely to benefit and will generally move to Medicaid in 2014. They could be shifted in the near-term, with safeguards to protect access to care and rigorous monitoring. Such monitoring, plus tracking whether the Exchange persuades commercial plans to accept CHIP-level payments to provide CHIP children with CHIP-level coverage, will let the state make a better informed decision, several years hence, about how to cover other CHIP children