Study: Working poor with ESI increasingly use Medicaid, CHIP to insure children

Parents with lower incomes who have health insurance through their employers are increasingly likely to forgo family coverage and enroll their kids in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) instead, a new study found (Source: “Many Parents With Job-Based Coverage Still Turn To Medicaid, CHIP To Insure Kids,” Kaiser Health News, Dec. 9, 2016).

Working families’ growing reliance on these programs is something lawmakers should keep in mind when they consider whether to renew financing for the CHIP program in 2017, according to the new study, which was published in the journal Health Affairs.

“These aren’t just safety net programs for uninsured families,” said Douglas Strane, a clinical research associate at PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the lead author of the study. “If CHIP isn’t renewed, we could place substantial pressure on working families.”