State Using Free Lunch Program to Find CHIP Eligible Kids

Aug 06, 2008 by Eric Ray

(KCPW News) Parents who apply for their children to receive free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch, School Breakfast, and Special Milk programs will now receive a tutorial on how to get health insurance for their child.

"We have added information about CHIP [Children's Health Insurance Program] onto the free and reduced school price lunch application form, so now there is information about benefits and how families can apply for coverage," says Kolbi Young, spokeswoman for the state's Children's Health Insurance Program.

Young says the change comes as a result of legislation passed earlier this year. House Bill 364 directs the Utah Department of Health, the Department of Workforce Services, and the State Office of Education to develop a process to promote health insurance awareness and coverage of children in schools. Young says the free school lunch application is a useful tool for the CHIP program.

"It's a way to promote the program in the schools so that more and more families are learning about the options that are available to them as far as insurance for their kids," says Young. "It's also a way to identify children who are not covered with insurance and seeing what we can do to get their children enrolled in public health insurance programs."

Also in the legislation, the state's school districts have included 450,000 flyers promoting CHIP in school registration packets.

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