HEALTH INSURANCE

In the United States, making sure that children had good health coverage has always been something that was important to the government and health insurance companies alike. Providing health insurance for children, especially for those from low-income families, is something very important in America today. Two programs that have been developed to make sure that there is health insurance for children are the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and the government's Medicaid program. Both of these programs have helped to provide good health insurance for children over the years.

The first glimmer of the Medicaid program was actually way back during the time of the depression. Programs were started to help mothers and their children and eventually these programs evolved through the years into what we now know as Medicaid. Medicaid was actually started officially in 1965 and it was then that it was decided that health insurance for children should be provided. Later in the 80's and 90's Medicaid was expanded even more to make sure that more children were covered and that they received the health insurance that they needed.

It was not until 1997 that SCHIP was created to help provide better health insurance for children on a state level. This helped to take some of the pressure off the federal government and states started offering more options for health insurance for children. There are a variety of children who have no other coverage and Medicaid and SCHIP have worked hard to make sure that children can get health insurance. The development of SCHIP has broadened the scope of children that can be included in programs that provide health insurance for children, which has helped millions of children across the United States. Health insurance for children is important and the federal government and states are still working to make it even better for children.