Cause for Celebration

By Aubrey Hill, Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved

For decades, Colorado has provided insurance coverage to low-income children through Medicaid and Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+). Despite its availability, many eligible Colorado kids have not enrolled—as of last fall, an estimated 81,000 eligible children remained uninsured. However, the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) announced this month that 22,700 children who were previously eligible but not enrolled (EBNE) had been enrolled in Medicaid and CHP+ since October 2013. That’s significant progress toward getting all kids covered, and a cause for celebration.

Since 2006, the All Kids Covered (AKC) coalition has been working to assure that every Colorado child has the opportunity to attain the health coverage they need to access care and services in order to live a healthy life. Part of that effort includes maximizing current coverage options and using every available tool and opportunity to do so. When health care reform made coverage available for more adults in the state, including parents and caregivers, AKC saw it as a real opportunity to get families insured, and to finally cover the remaining kids who have long qualified for Medicaid or CHP+ yet remained uninsured. Also known as the “welcome mat” effect, AKC and its partners have been hoping to see this type of enrollment increase, which should help further drive down the number of uninsured children in Colorado.

According to the latest Colorado Health Institute data, there are approximately 116,000 uninsured children in Colorado, and about 70 percent of those are estimated to be EBNE. A child could be EBNE for a variety of reasons, such as simply not knowing about the program or how to apply, or difficulties enrolling or staying enrolled. For many years, AKC and its partners have attempted to understand and address those barriers, and although it has been difficult, there has been a steady downward trend in EBNE numbers for the past several years.

The significant expansion of coverage opportunities for parents and families under the Affordable Care Act provided a unique opportunity to find and enroll EBNE kids while simultaneously reaching out to newly eligible adults. It is likely that marketing new coverage opportunities for adults raised awareness, and new enrollment assistance resources reduced barriers for families. It was our hope that the data would show these to have been successful strategies, and HCPF’s recent announcement indicates this was the case. Thus far, we estimate a 28 percent reduction in the number of EBNE kids in Colorado.

These are early findings, and we anticipate more good news to come. We applaud HCPF for tracking this important success story in increasing the number of insured children statewide, and we look forward to continuing this work so we can finally cross the finish line of getting all Colorado kids covered.