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Uncertainty Looms for Ohio's Health-Care Program for Seriously Sick Kids

Image of CHIP
CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM

A program that helps working families in Ohio afford health care for their children with serious medical conditions is in limbo. 

Office of Health Transformation Director Greg Moody says Congress has not re-authorized money for CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program that provides health care for 220,000 Ohio kids. He says without that federal money, the program would strain the state’s budget.

“A significant portion of the federal share of the program, that’s about $15 million every month in Ohio, will run out in April and will force the state to take money from other programs to fill that gap.”

Families in CHIP can earn up to 206 percent of the federal poverty level – that’s just over $40,000 a year for the average family of three.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.