The US Government has approved a deal, which will provide about $400m in local and federal funds to help about 22,000 uninsured children in Arizona.
The health-insurance programme will provide three large hospital groups with federal funding of about $130m to care for low-income, uninsured Arizonans with effect from 01 May this year through January 2014.
About $77m will be allocated to provide health insurance to children whose parents make too much money to qualify for the state’s Medicaid programme.
During the time of launch of the Kids Care programme, there were about 45,000 children while the current enrollment is below 12,000 with the waiting list increasing to 105,000.
KidsCare II programme is currently applicable only to children on the waiting list for Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and those enrolled in Medicaid.