Children's Health Insurance

Summary:

Children's health insurance is a vital consideration for any healthcare program, whether business or personal. If dependent’s healthcare is not a settled matter, parents are worried, distracted and less productive. You may be concerned for your own kids, for those of your employees or for both.

Here are solutions for healthcare issues for families at all income levels. Some solutions may be within your business or personal health insurance plan. Some will be outside your plan. No matter. We’ll show you how to find them. We’ll give you guidelines on how to apply and enroll. One or more of these options will work for you and for your employees.

Inside Your Health Insurance Plan:

Most business employee group health insurance plans cover all or some portion of the employee premium cost. A few cover some dependent costs. In most cases, dependent premiums are paid by employees.

For employees whose coverage for kids is paid by the employer, dependent insurance can be a settled matter. For employees with dependents not paid by the employer and for individual or family plans, the cost for children’s coverage is an issue needing attention.

Including dependents under employee or individual coverage is always the first and best option, if it is available and affordable. For families with an annual household income below about $40,000, paying for children’s health insurance can be difficult.

Outside Your Plan:

For many parents in lower income levels, there are two options that can offer relief – Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. Both programs are Federally funded, but state administered.

These Federal-state partnership programs are outside the scope of our operations. We can tell you about them, show you how to apply and lead you to them. Then, you’ll need to rely on the program administrators. If you qualify, we hope that these programs will serve you, at least for a while, for this important part of your family healthcare solution.

Medicaid Children’s Health Insurance

To qualify for Medicaid Health Insurance assistance, families must meet Aid To Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) eligibility requirements for their state of residence. Kids under six years of age can qualify if their family income is at or below 133 percent of the Federal poverty level. This amounts to about $28,000 annual income. Children ages six to 19 with family income up to 100 percent of the poverty level ($21,200) may also qualify. The poverty level figures are adjusted annually.

Medicaid program requirements are determined and administered by each state, in accordance with Federal guidelines. To determine eligibility and to apply, a prospective parent or guardian applicant must contact the Medicaid office in his or her state of residence. The contact information can be found on our page for your state of residence. Go to our state health insurance page and click on your state. Then, on your state page, click on Medicaid contact.

State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

Similar to Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program is also a Federally-funded program that is administered by and through the states. The objective of children's health insurance is to cover uninsured kids in families with incomes that are modest but that exceed Medicaid limits. Those eligible for Medicaid are not eligible for children's health insurance.

Every state has a SCHIP program. Within Federal guidelines, each state has the authority to establish program design and qualifications.

Children's health insurance covers kids from birth up to the age of 18 who live in families with incomes up to 200 percent or more of the Federal poverty guideline. With a 100 percent poverty level factor for a family of four being $21,200, the indicated income range for SCHIP would be $21,200 to $42,400. New and revised criteria go to a 300 percent of poverty level.

To inquire about the application of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to your family in your state, go to our state health insurance page and click on your state of residence. Then, on your state page, click on the SCHIP contact.

Potential Long-Term Issues With SCHIP:

Qualifying for SCHIP requires periodic renewal and re-qualification. Depending on applicable regulations, Children's Health Insurance may provide healthcare services at minimal cost or no cost. For those who qualify, SCHIP offers relief from the concerns for children’s healthcare and for the high cost of health insurance. As currently constituted, eligibility for SCHIP expires as children age or if family income exceeds the permitted limit.

In the event you are not familiar enough with our website to fully understand us, our underlying theme is - “No one will mind your healthcare affairs as well as you will – if you know how!” Our goals are to help you know how and, when we can, to assist you in doing what you need to do.

Our goals and theme are based on the premise that all of us are better served in an economic environment characterized by personal liberty, a free marketplace and limited government. From our viewpoint, we have a philosophical conflict with SCHIP.

At its core, SCHIP is government-controlled national healthcare. Its supporters have sought to expand the coverage of the program to include children up to age 25, families with income up to $84,000, and mothers of eligible children.

If they are successful, the State Children's Health Insurance Program could include most middle-income Americans under Medicare age, except for men. Men are the class least concerned with their healthcare. They are also the fathers and husbands who financially benefit by having reduced health insurance expenses for their families. Most men won’t complain about SCHIP. But, most of them also intuitively understand that there is no free lunch or free healthcare.

As we discuss on our page about National Health Insurance, government-controlled healthcare ultimately costs more, requires longer waits for service and delivers lower quality care. In the end, you may not be well served by a government healthcare system. You will likely need access to a free-market alternative, as the Canadians and British have discovered.

Why do we refer you to SCHIP? It’s simply the difference between “what if” and “what is”.

What if we could design the world the way we think it should be. We would advocate a non-government, free market approach, with private charity-based solutions for those in need. That has proven most effective whenever and where ever it has been tried.

But, we live in the real world. That includes SCHIP. If you, or any of our patrons, can benefit from Children's Health Insurance or any other existing program, whether we favor it or not, we will help you take advantage of it.