Healthy Families

Children who were disenrolled in Oregon's Family Health Insurance Assistance Program were more likely to have private health insurance coverage after leaving the program than children disenrolled from Oregon's SCHIP program, a study in Medical Care Research and Review found.

For the study, researchers used data from a telephone survey that included families with children who were currently enrolled in SCHIP and FHIAP and families who had been disenrolled in the programs for a minimum of two months and a maximum of four months.

The study found that among children who had lost coverage through SCHIP or FHIAP:

Half of SCHIP and FHIAP beneficiaries lost coverage because their families no longer met income eligibility requirements;
Half of SCHIP and FHIAP beneficiaries did not re-enroll in the programs because their families thought they were ineligible;
53% of FHIAP beneficiaries and 33% of SCHIP beneficiaries subsequently enrolled in private health insurance plans; and
More than 85% of families who had children dropped from SCHIP and FHIAP said they would have maintained coverage through the programs if they were eligible.

The researchers said that raising the maximum income eligibility requirement might help more people maintain enrollment in SCHIP and FHIAP programs (Mitchell et al., Medical Care Research and Review, October 2006). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.