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SCHIP Financing

SCHIP is a block grant program in which the federal government makes a capped amount of new funding available for each fiscal year. This capped funding is divided annually among the states, determined by a formula set out in the law. The federal government pays for 65 percent to 83 percent of each state's SCHIP initiatives. The match rate is based on the regular Medicaid match rate, but is significantly higher. After 10 years, SCHIP was up for renewal in 2007. Congress undertook efforts to reauthorize the program for another five years. Bi-partisan bills passed Congress but were ultimately vetoed by the President. To ensure SCHIP continued, a compromise measure funded the program until March 2009. Resources on SCHIP financing, including rules under the extension, follow. All documents are available in PDF format unless otherwise noted. For more information on the SCHIP program see About SCHIP and for additional resources on Medicaid and SCHIP financing see Facts and Statistics.

View by Category About SCHIP Financing SCHIP Financing Under Extension Historical Documents

About SCHIP Financing

• SCHIP's Financing Structure
  Details key elements of the existing SCHIP financing system including spending rules, annual allotments, enhanced matching rate and state spending requirement, formula for distributing funds, and redistributed funds.
  
  
• Financing Health Coverage: The State Children's Health Insurance Program Experience
  Despite SCHIP’s success in covering children, the program’s financing structure has been fraught with problems necessitating frequent revisions in the law and ongoing debate about how to address these problems. This issue brief reviews both the SCHIP financing structure and its issues.
  
  
• Federal Match Rates: Regular and Enhanced FY 2007-09
  Lists the Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) for the states, indicating how much responsibility the federal government has for financing SCHIP under an enhanced matching rate system.

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SCHIP Financing Under Extension

• SCHIP Funding in the Year Ahead: Implications of the Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Extension Act

• Projected Need and Availability of Federal SCHIP Funds in Fiscal Year 2008, by State
  
  
• Federal SCHIP Funds Available in Fiscal Year 2008, by State
  

• Federal Funding of Child and Family Coverage (PPT)
  Presentation by Jocelyn Guyer, Center for Children and Families and Matt Broaddus, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, on the options in 2008 for financing children's coverage through SCHIP and Medicaid.
  
  

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Historical Documents

• SCHIP Allotments by State, 1998-2007
  
  
• Federal SCHIP Expenditures by State, 1998-2007
  

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