1. National: New Health Care Reform Law: 2010 Provisions for Children and Families * States must at least maintain the Medicaid and CHIP coverage and enrollment procedures now in place. * Small employers receive tax credits covering 35 percent of health care premiums (increasing to 50 percent by 2014). * A high-risk pool established for qualified uninsured people with pre-existing conditions. * Young adults can remain on their parents' health plan until age 26. * Children with health insurance can no longer be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. * Health insurance plans can no longer impose lifetime caps or restrict annual limits on coverage and cannot rescind coverage when a person becomes ill. * New plans must provide free preventive services to enrollees. 2. National: What Does Health Care Reform Mean for Kids and Families? "Wow, this new healthcare bill looks like a big deal. How is it going to affect my family?" Millions of Americans are probably asking that question in the wake of the historic House passage of reform legislation Sunday night. The debate over this issue has been long, heated, and confusing, after all. The bill itself is thousands of pages long. Who has the time to follow that kind of thing when there is laundry to do, and meals to cook, and math homework to check? The short answer is that healthcare reform will affect families differently, depending on their different circumstances. For those struggling to pay bills, who've avoided buying health insurance because it costs too much, reform might mean they'll have coverage, at least in a few years. For those at the top end of the income scale, it will mean higher taxes, fairly soon. For the vast majority of middle-income families, details of employment, dependents, and place of residence might change how the health care bill will alter their lives. Here are a few specific family-oriented changes in the legislation: Kids with health problems. Healthcare reform legislation prohibits insurers from excluding from coverage children with pre-existing health conditions. This provision takes effect immediately upon the bill becoming law. The bill would also prohibit insurers from excluding adults with pre-existing conditions, but not until 2014. Older children and parental insurance. Dependent children up to age 26 will be able to stay on their parents' family policy, after President Obama signs the bill. (There's no special regulation as to what this will cost, however.) Currently, states regulate the age at which children are kicked off their parents' insurance policies. Generally, it's around 18 years old. Children's health insurance program. Kids' eligibility for popular CHIP, which helps lower-income families must be maintained under the bill. States, even if hard-pressed by budget shortfalls, will not be able to cut children from the program until 2019. Wellness program. Under bill language, "qualified health plans" will have to provide--with no cost-sharing--immunizations and other preventive health services for infants, children, and adolescents. This provision takes effect six months after the bill becomes law. [Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor, 03/22/10] 3. Arizona: Drops Children's Health Insurance Program Arizona on Thursday became the first state to eliminate its Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) when Gov. Jan Brewer signed an austere budget that will leave nearly 47,000 low-income children without coverage. The Arizona budget is a vivid reflection of how the fiscal crisis afflicting state governments is cutting deeply into health care. State leaders said they were left with few choices because of a $2.6 billion projected shortfall next year. But hospital officials and advocates for low-income people said they were worried that emergency rooms would be overrun by patients who had few other options for care, and that children might suffer enduring developmental problems because of inadequate medical attention. The cuts also mean the state will forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in federal matching aid, and could lose far more if Congress passes a health bill that requires states to maintain eligibility levels for the two programs. Ms. Brewer, a Republican, has warned that more cuts will be needed if voters do not approve a referendum in May to raise the sales tax by a penny for three years, to 6.6 cents per dollar. "Arizona is navigating its way through the largest state budget deficit in its long history," said Ms. Brewer, a staunch conservative who said she had never previously supported a tax increase. "With my signature on this budget, the first major step to recovery has been taken." The Republican-controlled legislature passed the budget last week, based largely on a proposal from the governor that included deep cuts to both health care and education. With state revenues down a third since 2007, the $8.9 billion budget reduced spending by about $1.1 billion. Three states, including Arizona, had in the last year capped enrollment in CHIP, financed jointly by states and the federal government. But two of those states--California and Tennessee--quickly removed their caps, said Jocelyn Guyer, co-executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University. "They really are standing alone in cutting children off during the downturn," Ms. Guyer said. "It's going to have long-term consequences that will be there for kids long after Arizona's budget situation gets better." The 12-year-old program, which enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, covers an estimated 7.7 million children whose parents typically make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance. Krista K. Long, 35, a social worker near Phoenix whose son, Aidan, 12, is covered by the program, said she decided after the budget passed to marry her boyfriend so that Aidan might be covered under her new husband's policy. "I can't risk having my child without health insurance," said Ms. Long, who is uninsured. "It would just take one fall off his bike and having to get an X-ray to really put us over the edge." [Kevin Sack, New York Times, 03/18/10]