Families With Mixed Eligibility For Public Coverage: Navigating Medicaid, CHIP, And Uninsurance

In the midst of health care reform, eligible but uninsured children remain a cause for concern. Children in the same family often have differing eligibility status for public coverage. Mixed eligibility is associated with higher uninsurance rates, even when all children in a family are eligible. Medicaid policies play an important role in creating mixed-eligibility families via age-related eligibility thresholds and limited benefits for immigrants; states running separate Children's Health Insurance Program ( CHIP) programs have higher uninsurance rates among eligible children. Recent policies to simplify enrollment have not lowered uninsurance among these children. States may improve take-up rates by focusing on eligible children in mixed-eligibility families. [ Health Affairs 28, no. 4 ( 2009): w697-w709 (published online 23 June 2009; 10.1377/hlthaff.28.4.w697)]