Review of the Ability of Noncustodial Parents To Contribute Toward the Medical Costs of Title IV-D Children in Virginia Under the State Children's Health Insurance Program

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The report points out that Virginia has an opportunity to increase enrollment in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and have noncustodial parents pay a portion of the associated costs.  Based on a statistical sample, we estimated that 14,804 Title IV-D children would have been eligible to receive SCHIP benefits during the period June 1, 2001 through May 31, 2002.  The noncustodial parents of 9,929 of these additional children could potentially contribute $5.2 million toward the $7.3 million in premiums that would have been incurred if the children had been enrolled.  For those children already enrolled, we determined that 1,116 received SCHIP managed care benefits and 446 of these children had noncustodial parents who could potentially contribute $193,453 toward the $303,041 in SCHIP premiums paid on behalf of their children.  We recommended that Virginia use the Title IV-D agency as an enrollment tool for SCHIP, and broaden its authority to require noncustodial parents with medical support orders to pay all or part of the SCHIP premiums for their dependent children.