An Examination of Child Health Insurance Program in the State Of Louisiana, USA

Abstract

This current study examined the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which was instituted to provide health coverage to eligible children only, through both Medicaid and separate CHIP programs. The CHIP is administered by states, according to federal requirements and laid down procedures. Meanwhile, the program is jointly funded by the states and the federal government to ensure a healthy growth among American’s children. Despite the tremendous increase of the immigrant's children in the United States of America, CHIP has yet neglected the fewer disadvantage immigrants' children in the educational sectors. In perusing the insurance policy for children, it is very sad to denounce that the first generational children are not covered; the reason being that they are not citizens. Besides, the entire school-going-age population group mingled-up in classrooms, playing grounds and many other recreational centres for fun, which will in the long-run make disease eradication impossible. The study was purely descriptive, and both secondary and primary sources of data were used for better elucidation and examination of the CHIP-program based on the perceptions of the American’s residents. The study found out that it is very difficult for CHIP to embark on disease eradication among in case of an outbreak among the infants. Additionally, the study underscored that majority of the respondents were of the view that CHIP is an emblematic example of a discrimination (or a racist) program in the State which needs a maximum attention to be looked at again. The study recommended that policymakers and the government should look at effective ways of re-packaging CHIP to cover all the school going age children in the state in order to protect the children from an outbreak of disease.

Keywords: Equity, CHIP, Infants, and Epidemiology