On February 5, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the expanded SCHIP Bill, which will fund the program for four and a half years. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a means of providing health coverage to children whose families have income moderately above the restrictions of Medicaid; this is approximately 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, about $34,000 for a family of three. SCHIP provides states with federal matching to support the program.

Currently Louisiana receives $84.1 million in funding for their SCHIP program (called LaCHIP). The recently signed bill gives LaCHIP a total of $207 million in funding, providing an additional 82,100 children in Louisiana health coverage. The federal funding for this bill will come from revenues produced through a nationwide tax increase on tobacco products.