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FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2004

NATIONAL REPORT CRITICIZES UTAH’S

APPROACH TO CUTTING CHILDREN’S HEALTH SERVICES

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2004) – An assessment of health care in the 50 states, released here today, faults Utah for freezing enrollment in its Children’s Health Insurance Program. The report appears in the February 2004 issue of Governing magazine.

“The states that froze enrollment have backed away from making hard decisions about eligibility,” says Katherine Barrett, co-author of the report. “It means that children in greater need may be turned away, while those with higher incomes receive services.” Barrett noted that Utah also decided not to keep a waiting list, but asked people to check back for the next open enrollment period—an approach that “risks losing touch with children who need help,” she says. The other states that have frozen enrollment in their Children’s Health Insurance Programs are Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Maryland and Montana.

On a positive note, Utah is one of the states that have been most successful at integrating its Medicaid and public health agenda. Its smoking cessation programs are targeted to women who are covered by Medicaid and its smoking rates generally are the lowest in the United States. It has the second-lowest infant mortality rate in the country, and ranks better than most states in its rates of pre-term and low-weight births. Its rate of uninsured children is considerably lower than other states in the region.

Governing’s analysis of state-funded health care is part of the Government Performance Project, a six-year-old effort, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to evaluate a wide range of state government management and policy functions. This year’s special report focuses on six critical health care problems facing states: long-term care, public health, mental health, prescription drugs, access to care for the uninsured, and care for children.

The Government Performance Project found and documented the inability of the 50 states’ health care system to deliver improvements in medicine fairly and consistently to many of their citizens. Health care in most states is not just inadequate, the study concluded--it’s deteriorating. “After exhaustive analysis and hundreds of interviews,” says Peter Harkness, Governing’s publisher and editor, “it became clear that there is a health care crisis in America. But it is in no way a medical crisis. It is a fiscal crisis.”

Governing is a policy and management magazine aimed at high-level state and local government officials. An online version of this report will be available at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm as of January 29. Press releases for each of the 50 states can be found at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/press.htm.

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