NACDS And Back-To-School Campaign Educate Uninsured Families On Available Health Care Options, USA

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 30 Aug 2007 - 3:00 PDT

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It is that time again when moms and dads are taking their kids to retail stores to purchase new pens, pencils, notebooks and folders. While backpacks are filled, there is something that many kids and families go without - health insurance.

Families may go uninsured because they do not know about all the options available to them. They often do not realize that there are affordable and sometimes free alternatives; consequentially there are 8.4 million uninsured children, the majority of whom are eligible for health care aid.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) has partnered for the past seven years with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Covering Kids and Families, a program created to encourage families to enroll in low-cost or free health care coverage programs. Throughout the United States there are a large number of uninsured children and adults that are eligible to enroll in Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), but unaware that these programs even exist.

Medicaid is a state administered program available only to certain low-income individuals and families who fit into an eligibility group that is recognized by federal and state law. SCHIP was designed as a federal/state partnership, similar to Medicaid, with the goal of expanding health insurance to children whose families earn too much money to be eligible for Medicaid, but not enough money to purchase private insurance.

Covering Kids and Families, in the spirit of the season, has issued a Back-to-School Campaign. NACDS has committed to work with the campaign, along with its partners and supporters, to reach millions of families by spreading the word about low-cost or free health care coverage.

The Back-to-School Campaign also includes thousands of activities, including health and enrollment fairs. These events encourage parents to place "enrolling their children for health care coverage" at the top of their back-to-school checklist. The collaborating companies are working to spread the message further through advertisements, public service announcements (PSAs) and by distributing information through their own Web sites, listserv announcements, newsletters, conferences and mailings.

"Promoting awareness of insurance options is consistent with the policy agenda of NACDS, which fosters enhanced access to health care," said NACDS President and CEO Steven C. Anderson, IOM, CAE "We applaud the work done by Covering Kids and Families and its efforts to educate families about Medicaid and SCHIP."

http://www.covertheuninsured.org