Arizona Drops Children's Health Insurance Program, Medicine Coverage

Published: Mon 22 Mar 2010

Thomas Kristoffersen

On Thursday, Arizona became the first state to jettison its Children's Health Insurance Program. The cut came as a result of the strict budget signed by Governor Jan Brewer that will take away coverage from almost 47,000 low-income children.

Arizona's budget is a microcosm of how the financial crisis plaguing state governments is deeply eroding health care. Arizona will also cut back the Medicaid program for adults without children in an effort that will eventually remove coverage from 310,000 people.

Few Other Options

State officials said they had few other options because of a projected deficit of $2.6 billion next year. However, hospital staff and advocates for the poor expressed concerns that emergency rooms would be deluged with patients who had no other choice for medical care, and that children might experience long-lasting developmental issues because of insufficient medical attention.

The cutbacks also mean that Arizona will give up millions of dollars in matching aid from the federal government and stands to forgo even more if Congress approves a health bill that forces states to preserve eligibility levels for both programs.

Governor Brewer, a Republican, cautioned that more cuts will be necessary if voters fail to approve a referendum on the ballot in May that will increase state sales tax by a penny for the next three years to 6.6 cents per dollar.

"Arizona is navigating its way through the largest state budget deficit in its long history," explained Gov. Brewer, a strong conservative who claims she has never before supported a tax increase. "With my signature on this budget, the first major step to recovery has been taken."

Cuts to Health Care and Education

The Republican-dominated state Legislature approved the budget last week, based mostly on a proposal by the governor that called for massive cuts to both education and health care. With Arizona's state revenue down by 33 percent since 2007, the new $8.9 billion budget curtailed spending by roughly $1.1 billion.

Including Arizona, three states capped enrollment in the Children's Health Insurance Program in the last year. The program is funded by a joint effort from the federal and state governments. However, two of those states-Tennessee and California-removed their caps shortly after, explained Jocelyn Guyer, the co-executive director of Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families.

"They really are standing alone in cutting children off during the downturn," Ms. Guyer explained. "It's going to have long-term consequences that will be there for kids long after Arizona's budget situation gets better."

Future of the Program

The Children's Health Insurance Program has bipartisan Congressional support and has existed for 12 years. The program offers medical coverage to the estimated 7.7 million children of parents who cannot afford private insurance but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid.

Krista Long, a 35-year-old social worker in Phoenix, has a 12-year-old son, Aiden, who is covered by the program. Once the new budget passed, Ms. Long decided to marry her current boyfriend so her son would be covered under her future husband's policy.

"I can't risk having my child without health insurance," the uninsured Ms. Long said. "It would just take on fall off his bike and having to get an X-ray to really put us over the edge."

The Medicaid cut for adults without children reigns in an expansion voters approved in 2000 and drops enrollment by about 25 percent. The expansion was to be funded by money from tobacco settlements, a source of revenue that eventually proved insufficient.