LaCHIP program gets OK to expand

Louisiana received federal approval last Wednesday to expand its children’s health insurance program to add another 6,500 children, from middle-income families that don’t have insurance.

The Louisiana Children’s Health Insurance Program, called LaCHIP, is funded with state and federal health care money, so state officials needed federal approval for any enlargements of the program.

The latest expansion will allow children in families with incomes up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level to participate in LaCHIP – an estimated 6,500 children, according to Kerry Weems, acting administrator for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That will include children in families of four earning up to $53,000 a year.

LaCHIP, like children’s health insurance programs in every state, provides health insurance coverage to children in families that earn too much to qualify for the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor.

Currently, Louisiana’s program included children of families earning up to twice the federal poverty level.

“This great expansion will mean that 6,500 additional children in Louisiana will now have access to regular, good health care through an insurance package,” Weems said at a news conference with Gov. Bobby Jindal and state health care leaders.

Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration submitted the application in September to expand the LaCHIP program, which already provides health insurance to more than 142,000 children.

Enrollment for the expansion is expected to begin by late spring or early summer, according to a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. The state dollars for the expansion were included by Blanco and the Legislature in this year’s budget, and Jindal said he is proposing to continue those dollars next year as well.

“This is certainly one additional step to ensuring that all Louisianians have access to high quality, affordable health care,” Jindal said.

Jindal, a Republican, is at odds with the Bush administration over further expansion of the children’s health insurance program. Congress has tried unsuccessfully to expand the program nationwide to allow more middle-income families to participate, but President Bush vetoed two bills that would have increased federal spending on the program.

Also at last week’s event, federal and state health officials touted the benefits of electronic medical records. DHH Secretary Alan Levine announced that Jindal’s budget proposal for the 2008-09 year that begins July 1 will include $19 million in new money to beef up health information technology and medical record sharing programs.