By Gretchen Hammer, Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved

Some people say stair stepping is good for your health.  Well, that may be true when you are exercising, but it is not true for families with children enrolled in public health insurance programs in Colorado.

Currently, a Colorado family can have kids on two different public health insurance programs causing confusion, inefficiency and unnecessary costs.  Because of this eligibility “stair step” a family with two kids ages four and seven, with an annual income of $28,000,  would have one child eligible for Medicaid, the four year old, and one child eligible for Child Health Plan Plus, the seven year old.  Colorado manages our Medicaid and CHIP programs separately, so these children would have different health plans, different benefits, two different enrollment cycles and potentially two different health care providers.

This year, through bi-partisan leadership from Senator Betty Boyd and Representative Cheri Gerou, Colorado passed SB11-008 to align Medicaid eligibility for all children below 133% of the Federal Poverty level, regardless of age.  Governor John Hickenlooper signed the bill into law on April 8, 2011. 

This law reduces red tape for families and makes government more “efficient, effective and elegant,” a campaign promise of Governor Hickenlooper.  Aligning our Medicaid eligibility will reduce paperwork and free up time of community based organizations, county and state agency staff who spend hours helping families navigate the eligibility and program differences.

Aligning our Medicaid eligibility also saves the state money because of differences in costs between Medicaid and the Child Health Plan Plus and federal matching funding for the programs.  Implementing this change now will also help Colorado doctors caring for children covered by Medicaid take advantage of federally funded enhanced payment rates in 2013 and 2014 as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 

There is a lot of work left to be done to ensure that the bill is successfully implemented and that the system really does become easier for families, providers and agency staff to navigate.  But in otherwise difficult times, we believe this is a big step in the right direction.