This week, the Senate will be working to pass bipartisan legislation to renew and improve the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). CHIP provides health coverage to low-income, uninsured American children whose parents do not qualify for Medicaid, but who cannot afford private health insurance. Since it was adopted in 1997 with strong bi-partisan support, CHIP has been a remarkable success. Over the past decade, it has been a driving force in reducing the uninsured rate of low-income children by a third. Last year, it covered 6.6 million children nationwide.

Recently, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA), along with Subcommittee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), put forward a proposal to the Senate Finance Committee to renew CHIP. With a strong showing of bipartisan support for children's coverage , the Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2007 was approved by the full Committee on July 19, 2007, by a vote of 17-4. The bill provides significant new federal resources for states to sustain and strengthen their existing CHIP programs, reach more of the uninsured children already eligible for CHIP and Medicaid, and improve the quality of care for America's children.

The following map provides a state by state breakdown on what this crucial piece of legislation means for individual states.

Please select a state from the map to view detailed statistics: