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Jeanne Lambrew 12/11/97 12:49:31 PM Record Type: Record To: Jennifer L. Klein/OPD/EOP cc: Subject: kids' outreach I don't know I told you but we missed our deadlines for the coverage and Medicare memos, so that the kids' ideas, listed below, are not final. But, since we have a little extra time, it would be great if you could take a look at it for us. Any additions? I may add Head Start sites as presumptive eligiblity sites as well. Thanks, Jeanne CHILDREN'S HEALTH OUTREACH The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides funds for coverage of millions of working families' uninsured children, a population that previously had trouble affording coverage. It also builds upon the Medicaid program, which covers nearly 20 million children. But important work remains to be done. In particular, we need to work with states to enroll the millions of uninsured children in these programs. Medicaid eligible children are especially at risk of remaining uninsured. Over three million uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid. Educating families about their options and enrolling them in Medicaid has always been a problem, but it has recently become even more challenging. The number of children covered by Medicaid leveled off in 1995 and, according to the Census, dropped by 6 percent in 1996. While some of this decline may be due to the lower number of children in poverty, another part may result from families' misunderstanding of their children's continued eligibility for Medicaid in the wake of welfare reform. Options to Increase Outreach for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program To address the need for children's health outreach, we propose a series of policy options. Together, these initiatives could cost $1 to 2 billion over five years (or more depending on policy choices about the enhanced match). Preliminary discussions with NGA and some children's advocates suggest they strongly support these efforts. In addition, the Administration is developing partnerships to encourage a complementary range of private outreach activities. Enhanced match for outreach. One option for improving state outreach is to provide an enhanced match to enroll children who are eligible for but not previously enrolled in