States are key to solving - they already administer Medicaid and SNAP – the largest parts of Social Security
Barnes et al 21 – Barnes is a former research analyst, Edelberg is a senior fellow at The Hamilton Project, Estep is a former research analyst, Greenstein is a visiting fellow for The Hamilton Project, Macklin is a Former Senior Research Assistant (Mitchell Barnes, Lauren Bauer, Wendy Edelberg, Sara Estep, Robert Greenstein, Moriah Macklin, “The social insurance system in the US: Policies to protect workers and families”, Brookings Institute, June 23, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-social-insurance-system-in-the-u-s-policies-to-protect-workers-and-families/)//TMMS
For families with modest incomes and with children who do not have private health insurance and do not qualify for Medicaid, there is CHIP. CHIP, which is administered by the states and funded jointly by the federal and state governments, provides health coverage for children in families who cannot afford private insurance but whose incomes exceed the Medicaid income eligibility limits. States can operate CHIP as a separate program or as a component of Medicaid. CHIP has significantly increased health insurance coverage for children (Gruber and Simon 2008), including among the children of immigrants (Bronchetti 2014). States have some flexibility to set the terms of the program, such as charging premiums, which can result in lower take-up and a shorter duration of enrollment (Dague 2014). CHIP improves children’s health (Bronchetti 2014) and educational outcomes such as test scores (Levine and Schanzenbach 2009), as well as high school and college completion (Cohodes et al. 2016). In adulthood, enrollment is associated with better labor market outcomes, including higher labor force participation rates and earnings (Brown, Kowalski, and Lurie 2015).