| Twenty-One
Million Children's Health: Our Shared Responsibility Report |
| Office of Child Support
Enforcement | Dept. of Labor
Press Release |
| Print Version |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2000
Contact: Michael Kharfen, (202) 401-9215
HHS AND LABOR DEPARTMENTS SEND REPORT ON ENFORCING
CHILD MEDICAL SUPPORT ORDERS TO CONGRESS
The U.S. Departments
of Health and Human Services and Labor today forwarded to Congress a report
by the Medical Child Support Working Group that contains recommendations
to attempt to expand health coverage for children eligible for child support
enforcement activities. The report, "Twenty-One
Million Children's Health: Our Shared Responsibility," responds
to the working group's statutory mandate to identify and provide recommendations
to address barriers to the effective enforcement of medical support by
state child support enforcement agencies.
The Medical
Child Support Working Group is a federal advisory committee jointly
established last year by the departments' Secretaries under the Child
Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998. It was formed to study
and provide recommendations on how to improve the enforcement of medical
support obligations for children.
Medical support
orders, which provide for children's health care coverage, may require
non-custodial parents to include their children under their employment-based
health insurance coverage. They may be established and enforced with the
help of state child support enforcement agencies.
It is estimated that
three million of the 21 million children currently eligible for child
support enforcement services are without any health care coverage. Copies
of the 260-page report as well as questions and answers regarding its
findings will be posted on the HHS Web site at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news.
"This report
provides helpful recommendations to ensure that children receive critical
health care coverage through every possible means including parents' private
insurance or joint federal-state programs such as Medicaid or the State
Child Health Insurance Program," said HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala.
Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman added that the working group's report
represents "an effort to ensure that we take responsibility for one
of our nation's greatest resources, our children."
The Medical Child
Support Working Group was made up of a diverse membership including representatives
of the two departments, children's advocacy organizations, directors of
state child support enforcement and Medicaid agencies, employers, and
group health plans' sponsors and administrators.
Since taking office,
the Clinton administration has made child support enforcement a high priority,
resulting in an 80 percent increase in collections since 1992. The number
of families receiving support increased by more than 59 percent during
the same period, increasing to 4.5 million families in 1998. Approximately
2.8 million parents delinquent in child support payments were found last
year by the National Directory of New Hires, which matches all employees,
both newly hired and those already holding jobs, with a list of parents
who owe child support. Paternity establishment rose to more than 1.4 million
in 1998, an increase of more than 300 percent since 1992. And the new
child support enforcement measures included in the new welfare reform
law are projected to increase collections by billions over the next 10
years.
###
Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are
available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.
Back to Top