September 13, 2017
WASHINGTON – Following the announcement that Senate Finance Committee leadership had reached an agreement to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) released the below statement supporting the five-year extension.
“We are pleased to see such strong, bipartisan support for a program that has made a difference in the lives of millions of children for over two decades,” said Kathy Ko Chin, APIAHF President and CEO. “CHIP serves millions of low-income children and their families, providing needed resources that they would otherwise not be able to afford. We call on Congress to immediately act and pass a five-year funding extension for CHIP.”
CHIP fills an important role by covering children in families that make too much money to enroll in Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health coverage. CHIP, together with Medicaid, covers forty percent of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander children and twenty-eight percent of Asian American children. For more information about how CHIP helps children of color get covered, see our fact sheet, CHIP: Essential Coverage for Children of Color.