Health Insurance for Low-Income Uninsured Children: A National Evaluation of SCHIP

Across the country, children without health insurance are a cause for concern. Many left the Medicaid rolls during welfare reform; some are from working poor families that lack insurance. Mathematica conducted a five-year national evaluation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a wide-ranging federal/state initiative to expand health insurance for low-income uninsured children. Under SCHIP, states receive federal matching funds to expand their Medicaid programs, purchase coverage through state-designed programs, or adapt some combination of the two approaches.

For this study, we reviewed research that examined the effectiveness of specific SCHIP program features in meeting a broad range of SCHIP goals. These goals included:

• Increasing enrollment and retention in SCHIP
• Broadening health coverage for previously uninsured children
• Expanding low-income children’s access to health care
• Improving parents’ satisfaction with children’s health care and health coverage
• Enhancing quality of care for low-income children
• Facilitating measurable improvement in children’s health

Click here for a list of publications from the evaluation.

Back to Top