Everyone knows that the key to a healthy future is getting the proper health care at an early age. However, there are thousands of children out there in the United States without health care. Many of these children can be covered under the United State’s Medicaid program but others belong to families that either do not qualify for health insurance because their parents have a small health insurance policy through their employer or because their family makes a little bit over the federal poverty level line and therefore they do not qualify for the program. It is because of children like this that the Children’s Health Insurance Program was developed.
The Children’s Health Insurance Program is a program that was developed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It was intended to get health care to children who were not covered under Medicaid or Medicare.
Under the program the United States provides matching funds to states that develop a children health care system that is targeted to low income children or pregnant women. States have a right to create whatever guidelines they wish with the funds that are provided to them and can choose their own eligibility for the program. However, all eligibility must include the factor of the family being low income or below the middle-class sector of America.
Many attempts have been made by both the House of Representatives and Congress to expand the program and provide more funding to states in order to cover a wider range of children. However, under the Bush administration these attempts were vetoed immediately. Under the Obama administration a new law was passed so that funding for the program was able to be increased. This allowed over four million children and pregnant women to be covered under the new laws and regulations.