{"id":104013,"date":"2017-08-18T18:21:14","date_gmt":"2017-08-19T00:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/federal-insurance-program-for-kids-at-risk\/"},"modified":"2017-08-18T18:21:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-19T00:21:14","slug":"federal-insurance-program-for-kids-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/federal-insurance-program-for-kids-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal insurance program for kids at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Josiah
Josiah Forkner, director of Montezuma County Social Services, says hundreds of children would be affected if a federal program is not reauthorized.<\/span>The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A 20-year federal health program that benefits children in low-income families could lose funding in December, officials report.<\/p>\n

The Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program<\/a> provides health insurance for 74,000 low-income kids in Colorado and almost 1,000 pregnant women living below the poverty level.<\/p>\n

In Montezuma County, 570 children are enrolled in the program; and in La Plata County, 971.<\/p>\n

The program, known as CHIP, targets children ages 0-18 whose family makes too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to pay for private health insurance.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, the plan is also known as Child Health Plan Plus<\/a>, a public low-cost health insurance for children and pregnant women who earn too much to qualify for Health First Colorado \u2013 Colorado\u2019s Medicaid Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is depended on by a lot of working families who don\u2019t have health benefits at work, make too much for Medicaid, and who otherwise could not afford insurance for their kids,\u201d said Josiah Forkner, social services director for Montezuma County. \u201cWe are being told that the state will continue to fund the program through December, and no new individuals can be added after Oct. 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal program began in 1998 and is typically reauthorized every two years, with a deadline for renewal of Sept. 30. But this time around, CHIP funding has not showed up in the budget, and that has alarmed health advocates, said Jeff Bontrager, of the Colorado Health Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe deadline is upon us, Congress has to decide this session whether to reauthorize funding nationwide,\u201d he said. \u201cThe program has historically had bipartisan support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Health Institute is preparing a brief that details the impact of losing the program, and plans to publish it this month.<\/p>\n

If the program is lost, CHIP recipients would have to turn to options under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. They could face higher out-of-pocket costs that they may not be able to afford, Bontrager said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other option is that they could be absorbed into the Medicaid program, but the state would have to expand eligibility requirements to include this population,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are not a whole lot of insurance plans out there for kids, and CHIP has been the safety net for lower income families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The short time line to reauthorize CHIP is also a concern and the fact that Congress has a lot on it\u2019s plate including renegotiating the debt limit ceiling and tax reform.<\/p>\n

Reauthorization also has political overtones, said Joe Hanel, of the Colorado Health Institute, with lawmakers \u201chinting that letting it lapse is a potential bargaining chip\u201d to bring back a bill to replace Obamacare.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, 8.9 million children are enrolled with the CHIP program. Of those, roughly 2 million have chronic health conditions, including asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and developmental disorders such as autism, according to a study published in Health Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more information about the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program contact the Pi\u00f1on Project at (970) 564-1195.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Back to school? Check your child\u2019s vaccines<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Program benefiting 570 in county may lose federal funding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[120,13,61,475,60,2682,945],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-health","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-montezuma-county","tag-social-services","tag-united-states-government"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104013"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}