Healthy Kids plan enrollment dropping

[Rosie the Riveter]

This is funny to me and so typical-- I would say that enrollment dropping in a welfare program is a good thing. The goverment officials protray it as a bad thing in this article. No sense -- no sense at all...


Healthy Kids plan enrollment dropping
By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006


CONCORD ? New Hampshire's Healthy Kids program is one of the most successful in the country, but is struggling to maintain that standing.

Healthy Kids executive director Tricia Brooks told about 100 people at an annual luncheon yesterday that applications are falling, even as the state pushes to enroll all eligible children in the program.

The New Hampshire program is the third most successful in the nation, Brooks said, "but it doesn't feel good enough when you're losing ground."

Vermont leads the nation in Healthy Kids enrollment, with only 4.7 percent of its children uninsured between 2003 and 2005, followed by Minnesota, at 5.7 percent. New Hampshire had all but 5.9 percent of children insured during those years, but that was up from 5.7 percent in 2002-04.

The number of New Hampshire children who have no form of health insurance numbers about 17,000, he said.

Brooks said new identity requirements the federal government has put into place for potential applicants have brought a 50 percent drop in applications.

The percentage of applications that are closed for a failure to complete has doubled, she said.

This fall, NHHK has seen the first decline in enrollment in the past seven years, she said.

The program's lead insurance product, Healthy Kids Gold, has 62,484 enrolled. Its Silver and buy-in programs, with premiums pegged to family income, enroll about 8,500, bringing total NHHK enrollment to 71,230.

The federal government reimburses the state for half its costs for Healthy Kids Gold, and 65 percent of the cost of its Silver programs.

In remarks to the group yesterday, Gov. John Lynch said Healthy Kids "is one of the best investments we can make as a state."

He said each 20 cents the state invests buys $1 in health insurance coverage through Healthy Kids.

Lynch said, "Not only is it morally the right thing to do, but from an economic perspective it pays huge dividends."

Each dollar spent on childhood immunizations saves $10 on health care costs later in life, he said. Preventing illness, which insurance encourages, is far cheaper than treating it, he said. One overnight stay in a hospital costs as much as every well-child checkup recommended from birth through age 18, he said.

A single emergency room visit costs as much as three trips to the doctor's office, he said.

"We have to continue to push hard to make sure that every child in New Hampshire does, in fact, have access to quality health care," Lynch said.