25 Years of CHIP: Impact of Children's Health Insurance Program

California News Service • Aug 10, 2022

This story was originally published by California News Service. Click here to read the original version.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, which in California is part of Medi-Cal.

The program has been wildly successful. As of 2020, just 3.6% of kids in the Golden State were uninsured. Medi-Cal and CHIP serve almost 5.5 million children in the state.

Even though most children are healthy, said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, it's too big a risk to go without health insurance.

"So any gap in coverage for children is a problem for families and a problem for our country as a whole," she said. "It pays enormous dividends to make sure that children have access to health insurance so that they can grow up healthy and thriving."

Read the full story here, which quotes Senior Policy Research Associate Alexandra Parma and Managing Director Sarah Crow.

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25 Years of CHIP: Impact of Children's Health Insurance Program

California’s Medicaid Breakthrough: An Opportunity to Advance Children’s Social and Emotional Health

Many Medi-Cal Changes Underway: An Overview and the Impact on Children

New pre-pandemic data show children with Medi-Cal don’t access enough preventive care

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