Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, and Cost Sharing Policies as of January 2019: Findings from a 50-State Survey

Executive Summary

This 17th annual survey of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC) provides data on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligibility, enrollment, renewal, and cost sharing policies as of January 2019. It is based on a telephone survey of state Medicaid and CHIP officials conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. Appendix Tables 1-20 include state data. The survey data over the past 17 years document how Medicaid has evolved from a program with limited eligibility and burdensome enrollment rules that excluded many low-income adults and created barriers to enrollment for eligible individuals to a modernized program that, with CHIP, provides a broad base of health coverage for the low-income population and more effectively and efficiently connects eligible individuals to coverage. Emerging policies to add Medicaid eligibility requirements could lead to coverage losses and increase the complexity of enrollment processes, eroding coverage gains and enrollment simplifications realized under the ACA.

Full 50-State Survey

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Blog

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Tricia Brooks is a Research Professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families.

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