The CDF report noted that some states had plans to force some uninsured children to wait between 3 and 12 months for coverage after losing insurance through parents' employment. Connecticut's plan includes a six-month waiting period for getting coverage, but establishes broad exemptions from the waiting period for children whose parents lose dependent coverage from employers through no fault of their own. Lower income families are exempted from the waiting period if they cannot purchase interim coverage. For children from families earning more than 150 percent of the federal poverty line, total payments cannot exceed more than five percent of the family income. Many states are planning outreach initiatives, shortening application procedures and simplifying enrollment in ways that meet the law's requirement that the combined cost of these efforts total no more than 10 percent of the federal CHIP allotment.
Recent research emphasizes the importance of eligibility.
An Urban Institute report stated the program has potential to provide coverage to 5.8 million children. But researchers maintained that states may have difficulty finding and enrolling sufficient numbers of eligible children to draw upon their full federal allotments. Researchers estimated that only 2.9 million eligible children could actually benefit from the coverage. Nearly 28 percent of them are without coverage, while 17.6 percent of African American children and 12.2 percent of white children lack insurance. Children with just one employed parent .