Monday, November 7th, 2011 - 9:29
Monday, November 7, 2011 - 08:16
Children of state employees in a handful of states can enroll in the Children's Health Insurance Program if their parent meets certain income stipulations.
At least six states now allow the children of state employees, in some cases, to enroll in the joint federal-state Children's Health Insurance Program, according to Kaiser Health News and The Washington Post. The shift was allowed under the 2010 health reform law.
State employees who meet certain income requirements -- generally those who make too much too qualify for Medicaid but not enough of a state salary to afford family coverage -- can enroll their children in CHIP. Critics of this element of the health law fear it will lead to the so-called crowd-out effect, in which public coverage replaces the private market. They also fear it gives states an incentive to move the children of low-income employees into the CHIP program to save themselves money and hand part of the bill over to the federal government.
To protect against this, the health law requires that states demonstrate they have not cut their share of employee health costs in an attempt to get employees to move their children to CHIP.
