Broaddus Matt, Park Edwin
Health Policy Department, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Washington, DC 20002, USA.
J Ambul Care Manage. 2006 Oct-Dec;29(4):254-71. doi: 10.1097/00004479-200610000-00002.
In order to better inform the debate as federal policymakers prepare to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 2007, this brief analyzes the key components of the financing structure of SCHIP including capped federal block-grant funding, the methodology for determining state's allotments of federal funding, the period of availability of allotments, and the redistribution of unspent funds. In addition, estimates presented in this brief indicate that under Congressional Budget Office baseline assumptions, SCHIP is reauthorized but annual SCHIP funding will be permanently frozen at 5.04 billion US dollars without any increases for population growth or healthcare inflation. As a result, states will suffer an aggregate federal SCHIP funding shortfall of 10.4 billion US dollars to 12.1 billion US dollars over the 5-year period from 2008 through 2012, thus placing SCHIP coverage of many low-income children at significant risk. As part of SCHIP reauthorization, federal policymakers should include substantial increases to SCHIP funding above baseline levels to avert these shortfalls.
为了在联邦政策制定者准备于2007年重新授权《州儿童健康保险计划》（SCHIP）时，更好地为相关辩论提供信息，本简报分析了SCHIP融资结构的关键组成部分，包括联邦封顶整笔拨款资金、确定各州联邦资金分配份额的方法、拨款的可用期限以及未使用资金的重新分配。此外，本简报中的估计表明，根据国会预算办公室的基线假设，SCHIP获得重新授权，但SCHIP年度资金将永久冻结在50.4亿美元，不会因人口增长或医疗保健通胀而增加。因此，在2008年至2012年的5年期间，各州将面临总计104亿美元至121亿美元的联邦SCHIP资金缺口，从而使许多低收入儿童的SCHIP覆盖面临重大风险。作为SCHIP重新授权的一部分，联邦政策制定者应大幅增加SCHIP资金，使其高于基线水平，以避免这些缺口。
