Children’s health insurance programs are designed for medical coverage of people below 19 years of age whose guardians or parents earn a lot of income to qualify for Medicaid but not sufficient to accommodate private coverage. The program varies from state to state and is designed to cover immunizations, prescriptions, vision care, dental care, laboratory services, emergency services and many more. The CHIP assists parents who have not been given coverage for their children by the employer. The program enables children to be monitored frequently by a doctor on their health.
According to Wherry, Kenney, & Sommers (2016), CHIP has been of importance to children health insurance by providing vital financial benefits to families that earn low income. As much as most research pays a lot attention on the impact of the CHIP on the utilization and outcomes of healthcare, Wherry, Kenney, & Sommers clearly stipulate how the insurance program provides financial protection to families. With regard to Wherry, Kenney, & Sommers article, expansion of the CHIP for children in low income families and adults is associated with reduced cash spending on medical services, elevated families’ financial stabilities and material improvement of the well-being of the families. Taking into account cash medical expenses, the program plays a vital role in reducing poverty to several families as well as children.
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Wherry, Kenney, & Sommers (2016) further indicate that the program can also connect the families to other assistance programs that also focus on decreasing poverty prevalence in the community. Access to CHIP in childhood provides long term healthcare effects as well as outcomes of economy in adulthood. Besides, exposure to the program during childhood has been connected to reduced death rate and less severe health conditions, less dependence on the support of the government as well as enabling children to attain better education. In summary, the article tries to reveal the importance of CHIP in reducing the short and long term poverty for families with children who earn less income.
DeVoe et al. (2014) argue that the United States changes in politics and economy have affected the CHIP immensely for both children as well as their parents. The policies put in place have on a wider extent affected the patterns of coverage for children and for low-income families. According to DeVoe et al. (2014) research, most families that earn less income showed changes in the coverage. The health of children is compromised when the parents are uninsured and most parents lost coverage between 1998 and 2009 when this was implemented. The authors further suggest that investigation should be conducted beyond the coverage of children in order to be conversant with how policies of health and insurance change coverage impacting the health of children.
In regard to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, both articles have indicated how the program is beneficial to low income families. As much as the CHIP offers financial protection to the low income families as stipulated in both articles, the second article indicated how children gained and parents lost. From my point of view, the second article is the most relevant. This is because the article has attempted to weigh both the benefits of Children Health Insurance Program to children and their families and also indicating how parents lost coverage as a result of the public health insurance program.
To conclude, the Children Health Insurance Program is an important program that offers financial protection to the low income families. However, there is need of extensive policy interventions to enhance health insurance availability to all parents and children. The loss of parental coverage will impact the health of children negatively.
References
DeVoe, J. E., Tillotson, C. J., Angier, H., & Wallace, L. S. (2014). Recent health insurance trends for US families: children gain while parents lose. Maternal and child health journal , 18 (4), 1007-1016.
Wherry, L. R., Kenney, G. M., & Sommers, B. D. (2016). The role of public health insurance in reducing child poverty. Academic pediatrics , 16 (3), S98-S104.
