Role of SCHIP in Serving Children with Special Health Care Needs

The purpose of this article is to provide new information about two policy issues: (1) Is the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) an important source of health insurance for children with special health care needs (CSHCN)? and (2) Does SCHIP provide CSHCN with better access to care, compared with other insurance coverage? Using the 2001 National Survey of CSHCN, we found that a limited fraction of CSHCN were eligible for SCHIP while a relatively small proportion of SCHIP-eligible CSHCN were uninsured. Access to care for CSHCN under SCHIP was better than those SCHIP-eligible but uninsured, and similar to those income-eligible for SCHIP but privately insured.