SCHIP Expansion

CMS issued revised guidelines on April 28 on statistical criteria that States must meet in order to expand SCHIP eligibility to children in families with income over 250 percent of the Federal poverty level. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey have been in litigation against CMS over an 8/17/07 version of the guidelines. The April 28 version offers new flexibility to States on data sources and methods that may be used to prove that at least 95 percent of children at lower income levels have already been enrolled in public or private health insurance plans. PCG can help States to develop methods to document compliance within the revised guidelines.

 

Tom Entrikin

Tom Entrikin is a PCG manager and former Medicaid policy specialist with the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).