CHIP enrollment number 1999-2022

More than seven million children were enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 2022. This number has steadily increased in the provided time interval. The plan was signed into law in 1997, and there were around 1.7 million enrollees during the second year of the program. 

Health insurance options for children

CHIP provides health coverage to eligible children through standalone programs or as a complement to Medicaid. Both programs combined to cover approximately 39 million children in October 2023, with the state of California providing the highest number of enrollees. CHIP helps to fill the coverage gap for children in families that have incomes that are too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private health insurance. For Medicaid and CHIP programs in 2023, the median upper income eligibility level for children was 255 percent of the federal poverty level.

Measuring and monitoring quality of care

Both CHIP and Medicaid are jointly financed by the federal and state governments, but states have the final say on many of the program’s important issues. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services established a core set of health care quality measures for children in Medicaid and CHIP in 2010. A total of 24 measures were recommended in 2020, and the states of Florida, Alabama, and West Virginia reported the most. The reporting of measures is currently voluntary but will become mandatory in 2024.