Published: December 27, 2010
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Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, has called the matter “a moral obligation.”
The payments, which were established when Congress and President Obama reauthorized the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 2009, are aimed at one of the most persistent frustrations in government health care: the inability to enroll an estimated 4.7 million children who would be eligible for subsidized coverage if their families could be found and alerted. Two of every three uninsured children are thought to meet the income criteria for government insurance programs.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has called the matter “a moral obligation” and has challenged health care providers, state and local governments and community groups to seek out eligible children.
The stubbornness of the problem is one reason the government expects millions of people to remain uninsured even after 2014, when the new health care law requires most Americans to have coverage and vastly expands government programs to make it affordable.
The bonus grants are distributed according to a formula. To qualify, states must have adopted at least five of eight measures aimed at streamlining enrollment for children in public insurance programs and have recorded Medicaid caseload increases that could not be attributed solely to a worsening economy. Thirty-two states did not even apply for the grants. Three of the 18 that did apply did not qualify for payments.
To read the full article in the New York Times, click here.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has called the matter “a moral obligation” and has challenged health care providers, state and local governments and community groups to seek out eligible children.
The stubbornness of the problem is one reason the government expects millions of people to remain uninsured even after 2014, when the new health care law requires most Americans to have coverage and vastly expands government programs to make it affordable.
The bonus grants are distributed according to a formula. To qualify, states must have adopted at least five of eight measures aimed at streamlining enrollment for children in public insurance programs and have recorded Medicaid caseload increases that could not be attributed solely to a worsening economy. Thirty-two states did not even apply for the grants. Three of the 18 that did apply did not qualify for payments.
To read the full article in the New York Times, click here.
