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Document 518 of 1000.

January 3,2000, Monday

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 1B

LENGTH: 904 words

HEADLINE: KIDS MISSING OUT ON PROGRAM GROUP PUSHING STATE TO SIMPLIFY APPLICATION FOR MEDICAL INSURANCE

BYLINE: Catherine Candisky, Dispatch Statehouse Reporter

BODY:

As the number of uninsured children in Ohio grows, efforts must be improved to enroll youngsters from working poor families in a free health-insurance program, the Children's Defense Fund-Ohio says.

About 80 percent, or 220,000, of Ohio's uninsured children are eligible this year for benefits under the federal Children's Health Insurance Program and Healthy Start/Medicaid, according to a defense fund report released today.

However, just 68,000 youngsters statewide are enrolled in the 2-year-old program known as CHIP, which is administered by the Ohio Department of Human Services.

According to the defense fund report, cumbersome enrollment requirements are the cause of the low participation rate. The defense fund urged the human-services department to make it easier for families to sign up their children. Among the recommendations in the report:

* Reduce paperwork to the federal minimum and ensure each of Ohio's 88 counties requires the same documents to verify age and citizenship.

* Guarantee continuous coverage for one year and drop the requirement that enrollees reapply every six months.

* Coordinate application and documentation requirements with those for other family programs operating under similar income guidelines, such as Head Start or school-lunch programs.

"When you look at enrollment, we clearly have a long way to go,'' said Mark Real, director of the defense fund.

"We've had two years of experience on this program, and we've learned some things. One is that we need to keep the program simple. Complexity drives people away.''

Another problem for working poor parents is knowing about the program; they often have no contact with their county welfare departments, which process the applications.

Rheshay Perry, a child-care teacher at South Side Learning & Development Center for five years, said she recently obtained health coverage for her 9-year-old son after hearing about the program at work.

"I didn't know about the program until the social worker here told me,'' she said.

"She helped me fill out the paperwork, got my paycheck stubs and everything, and sent it along. I didn't expect much because it's hard to get help from the government. But it has worked out.''

The 30-year-old single mother earns $ 8 an hour and receives no child support. After spending $ 400 a month on rent and utilities, Perry can't afford the $ 150 it would cost for family health insurance.

Linda Hanrahan, a social worker at the learning center, estimated that they have forwarded 45 applications to the Franklin County Department of Human Services.

"We've had more calls than that, but people often don't have everything they need, like birth certificates,'' she said. "The attachments bog down the process, and many parents just throw in the towel.

"People need help completing the application. It wasn't designed very well, and that's been a big complaint.''

Real said child-care centers, Head Start programs and schools are good places for human-services officials to reach out to low-income families who qualify for the benefits.

Jon Allen, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Human Services, said the agency has tried to help enrollees by expanding the hours of its telephone hot line and providing a better-trained staff to take those calls.

Coordinating the application process with other similar programs, he said, is an idea the agency will look at once its merger with the Bureau of Employment Services is completed July 1.

Extending eligibility to 12 months would cost an estimated $ 85 million more a year in state and federal funding and would have to be approved by the Ohio General Assembly, Allen said.

Low enrollment is not just a problem in Ohio. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 11 million Americans younger than 19 lack health insurance. About 1.2 million were enrolled in CHIP last year.

A national study, which will be released this week with similar findings and recommendations, estimated that 4.7 million more uninsured children could be enrolled by coordinating the application with four other programs: the National School Lunch Program; Food Stamps; the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children; and the Unemployment Compensation Program.

For instance, the school-lunch program provides the potential to reach 3.9 million low-income children, according to the study by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization based in Washington, D.C.

Congress created CHIP in 1997 and gave states $ 24 billion over five years to extend health benefits to children of the working poor.

Eligibility requirements vary from state to state, but the major thrust was to assist families who recently moved off welfare into low-paying jobs, families who no longer qualify for Medicaid but don't earn enough to pay for private insurance.

In Ohio, lawmakers used the money to expand Health Start/Medicaid to children in families earning up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Starting this year, the program has been expanded to include families earning double the federal poverty level or as much as $ 22,120 a year for a family of two.

For more information about CHIP, call 800-324-8680 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. A two-page application is available online at www.state.

oh.us/odhs/medicaid/flyer01.stm.

LOAD-DATE: January 4, 2000

Document 518 of 1000.


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