New York Medicaid and Child Health Plus (the state's CHIP program) offer an innovative array of optional eligibility and enrollment policies that work together to increase access to children's coverage.
- In addition to Medicaid, which covers 81% of U.S. children in poverty, New York provides optional coverage for children ages 0-18 up to 405% of the FPL through its Separate CHIP program.
- New York is one of six states nationwide to offer streamlined enrollment and renewal for Medicaid applications, improving the speed and efficiency of enrollment for eligible children.
- Child Health Plus (CHP) offers sliding-scale premiums with no other cost sharing for families above 160% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) choosing to opt in, while children enrolled in Medicaid have no premiums, enrollment fees, or cost sharing.
- New York provides 12-month continuous eligibility for children enrolled in Medicaid and CHP, allowing them to remain enrolled until the next renewal regardless of any changes in income or family size.
Estimates predict that 130,000 to 775,000 children ages 0 to 18 in New York could become newly uninsured by 2019 due to partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act and failure to reauthorize the federal CHIP program.
Children Ages 0–20 Enrolled in Medicaid, June 2016: 2,289,676
Children Ages 0–18 Enrolled in CHP, June 2016: 291,386
This figure compares New York CHP eligibility to the national median calculated for state CHIP programs operated separately from Medicaid (i.e., Separate CHIP), including Separate CHIP programs that are combined with CHIP-funded Medicaid expansions. New York Medicaid eligibility is compared to the national median for all states' Medicaid programs, excluding income limits associated with states' CHIP-funded Medicaid expansions. Source: Kaiser Family Foundation. “Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost Sharing Policies as of January 2017: Findings from a 50-State Survey.”