According to Health Affairs, more than 5 million uninsured children in the U.S. were eligible for Medicaid (SCHIP) funding but were not enrolled. Almost 40 percent of U.S. uninsured kids reside in only 3 states: California, Florida, and Texas (more than half of the country’s children reside in these 3 states). At least HHS Secretary Sebelius recognizes the problem: “No child should have to skip a doctor’s appointment or go without the medicine they need because their family can’t pay”, exhorting state and local officials to “find and enroll those five million kids”. She may want to begin in, of all states, Utah. The intermountain Western state has the lowest SCHIP participation rate in the country. Unfortunately, the prevailing solutions to problems of unknown eligibility remain education of the masses — a solution currently at a standstill because of strained state budgets in the wake of the current recession. | LINK

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