CMS Should Improve Efforts to Assess whether SCHIP is Substituting for Private Insurance
The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was created by Congress to reduce the number of uninsured children in low-income families who do not qualify for Medicaid. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently examined the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) and states’ efforts to minimize the incidence of individuals substituting SCHIP for private health insurance—known as crowd-out.
To improve information on whether crowd-out should be a concern in SCHIP, GAO recommends that CMS ensure that all states: (1) collect and report consistent information on the extent to which SCHIP applicants have private insurance available to them; and (2) take appropriate steps to determine whether available private health insurance is affordable for SCHIP applicants.
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