Express Lane Eligibility and Beyond: How Automated Enrollment Can Help Eligible Children Receive Medicaid and CHIP
Apr, 2009
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ReportTopic:
EnrollmentExpress Lane Eligibility and Beyond:
How Automated Enrollment Can Help Eligible Children Receive Medicaid and CHIP
As states work to insure more children in challenging economic times, a new report funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) explores how states can identify and enroll eligible but uninsured children by borrowing automated strategies that have proven effective in helping eligible people receive other public and private benefits. Authored by Urban Institute researcher Stan Dorn in collaboration with the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), the report details how auto-enrollment strategies have the potential to identify, enroll and retain large numbers of eligible children while reducing state administrative costs. The report explains how the recently enacted Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) makes these strategies substantially easier for states to implement while establishing powerful new financial incentives for states to reach the greatest possible number of eligible children.
Express Lane Eligibility and Beyond: How Automated Enrollment Can Help Eligible Children Receive Medicaid and CHIP discusses CHIPRA’s new Express Lane Eligibility option, which lets states grant health coverage when information already in the hands of government agencies shows that children are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The report finds:
- 89 percent of uninsured children who qualify for Medicaid and CHIP live in families who file income tax returns.
- 96 percent of children who receive free school lunches have family incomes low enough to qualify for Medicaid or CHIP.
- Only one-tenth of one percent of children who receive Food Stamps are ineligible for Medicaid and CHIP in states that take full advantage of CHIPRA.