Just two months after freezing enrollment in the Healthy Families Program and initiating a waitlist, enrollment has reopened in California Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). A budget shortfall of just under $200 million has been plugged by a generous contribution from the state’s First Five Commission, increased family cost-sharing, and a new premium tax on Medi-Cal (Medicaid) managed care plans, which passed the legislature (AB 1422) and is awaiting the Governor’s expected signature.

This turn of events illustrates how committed the public is to covering all children.

State child health advocates and other stakeholders, including the managed care plans in California and the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (which administers Healthy Families) worked with policymakers and the First Five Commission to find a solution. At one point the situation was so dire, it was likely that in addition to waitlisting new applicants, children who were due to renew their eligibility on their annual anniversary date would not be allowed to continue coverage. The loss of coverage at renewal due to a funding shortfall had never happened in the twelve-year history of CHIP.

Just this week, CCF released a report “Weathering the Storm” detailing action that 23 states have taken to improve children’s health coverage. Only three states were noted as slipping in their efforts to cover more kids, California being one of them.  We are pleased to remove California from that list as Healthy Families works to clear the backlog of applications for nearly 90,000 children.