Fundraiser cause of $100 million loss

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana's success in signing uninsured children up for a health-care program contributed to its loss of $100 million in federal funding, officials say.\n"They only gave us six months to spend that $100 million. It became extremely difficult to do," said Andrew Stoner, a spokesman for Gov. Frank O'Bannon.\nIndiana is one of 25 states that lost an estimated $1.2 billion in unspent funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program on Oct. 1. The Bush administration expects that amount to grow to $2.8 billion next year unless Congress votes to extend the deadline.\nThe unused money, which was first allocated four years ago, has reverted to the federal treasury.\nThe insurance program, which began in 1997, was designed to provide health coverage for low-income children who did not qualify for Medicaid but whose families could not afford private insurance.\nMany states lost the funding because officials did not start the program quickly enough or did not have enough children enrolled.\nIndiana health care officials, however, faced the opposite problem. Less than two years after the program began, the state had increased insurance coverage for children by 56 percent.\nThe $100 million awarded to the state in March was leftover money from states that did not spend all of their initial funding.\nState Medicaid Director Melanie Bella said those who work with the program struggled to find ways to spend the extra cash. The state applied for federal waivers that would have allowed it to put that money toward other health care initiatives, but those requests were denied.\n"We ran out of time to identify other uses," she told The Indianapolis Star for a story published Tuesday.\nIndiana has registered 286,800 children -- about 55 percent of those who are eligible -- for the program. For the current fiscal year, the state will receive $53.7 million for the 73 percent of health care costs paid by the federal government. The state is responsible for the remaining 27 percent and administers the program.\nNationally, 42 percent of children eligible for government-funded health insurance are enrolled; an estimated 8.2 million children were not insured at the start of 2002.\nBella said the program would continue providing health insurance for low-income children, but she regretted not being able to put the additional $100 million in the bank.\n"In future years, if our costs were to exceed the money that we had, it would've been nice to have this," she said.\nU.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., said she planned to seek an extension that would allow states to keep the extra money for a few more years.