What is CHIP?

CHIP, which stands for Children’s Health Insurance Program, is a federally-funded state administered program that provides millions of children all over the United States with quality health care coverage. CHIP is crucial, as it helps to cover children who fall into a gap—their families make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but they also cannot afford private health insurance. The population that falls into this gap is expansive. Under CHIP, almost 9 million children are covered every year! CHIP is especially essential to families of color. More than half of Hispanic and Black children are covered through CHIP and Medicaid.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, CHIP has helped to take the percentage of uninsured children from 14% in 1997 all the way down to 5% in 2016. Numbers give us only one view of how important CHIP is to U.S. families, but stories like Rebecca’s give us a better idea of how CHIP helps her family and millions of other families across the country in a times of economic insecurity and emotional distress.

Before the Affordable Care Act, my family's income was just barely too high to qualify for Medicaid, but our income was too low to be able to afford to buy health insurance. As self-employed people, health insurance was out of our reach. We tried to find plans that we could afford; we scrimped to buy terribly inadequate so-called catastrophic coverage; we needed that money and decided to live without health insurance, which was a constant background source of stress and anxiety. It always felt like we were one health scare, one accident away from disaster. Thank God for CHIP, because at least we knew that our two children were covered; my husband and I just went without.

Why is CHIP at risk?

When CHIP was first passed in 1997, it was authorized until 2007. Since then, Congress has had to come back and extend the program every few years. Which brings us to today. By September 30, 2017, Congress will need to decide if it will extend CHIP, and President Trump will need to sign the extension into law. If CHIP isn’t funded, the future of 9 million children’s health insurance will be in jeopardy.

This means that the parents and guardians of 9 million children will once again feel distress and uncertainty. They will have no way to provide their children with the health care they need and deserve, and they will be strapped financially to try and cover health care costs. The extension of CHIP should be a top priority for Congress. The health of our families, communities, and economy depend on it.