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Who Is Covered by SCHIP?
SCHIP was created to help provide health insurance benefits for low-income children under age 19. In August 2007, the Bush Administration announced a rule requiring states to use 95% of the SCHIP funds for families with children where the family income is 200% or less of the federal poverty level, before using the funds to serve families earning more than 250% of the federal poverty level. As an example, the federal poverty level for 2008 stood at $22,200 per year for a family of four, which means families of four earning up to $44,400 per year could qualify for SCHIP programs. Some states have increased eligibility levels to a higher level, while others have set maximum income levels below 200 percent of poverty.
Although SCHIP is aimed mainly at covering children, states have sometimes obtained special permission to use SCHIP funds to cover adults. In March 2006, for example, 15 states had obtained permission for non-standard programs for adults that were financed at least in part by SCHIP appropriations. In 12 of these states, SCHIP coverage was extended to include one or more categories of adults who had children, typically parents of Medicaid/SCHIP children, caretaker relatives, legal guardians, and/or pregnant women. At the end of 2006, four states had permission to use SCHIP to cover childless adults, and nine states cover unborn children who will be eligible for SCHIP at birth as well as prenatal and childbirth services for the mother of the child. To find out if your state offers any SCHIP healthcare benefits to citizens out- side the standard SCHIP guidelines, visit www.cms.hhs.gov.
More than 7.7 million children from low-income families received healthcare benefits in 2010 as a result of the SCHIP program. Below are examples of the number of children in 2010.
Federal Resources for Health Care Coverage