CHIP Offers Families With Seriously Ill Kids More Financial Protection Than ACA Plans

Kaiser Health News

By: Michelle Andrews

Children that have chronic health conditions are the most prone to health insurances changes, especially since they have to rely on so many medications and different doctors, which affects not only the children’s health but also their families financial status.

Since passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, some policy analysts have advocated moving children who are enrolled in CHIP into marketplace plans and dismantling the CHIP program. But earlier evaluations found, as did this study, that CHIP coverage was better and cheaper than marketplace coverage, said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families… Noting that CHIP has a history of strong bipartisan support, Alker said she is hopeful that it will be extended. “I think it would be very hard for Congress to let CHIP expire,” she said, “and put those children into the marketplace, when according to their leaders it’s about to fold.”

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