Our History - A Timeline

1993

New Hampshire Healthy Kids Corporation (NHHK) was established by special legislative act.  The organization is governed by a 17-member volunteer Board of Directors comprised of six representatives of state government, seven appointees of specific stakeholder organizations, and four members at-large elected by the Board.

1994

An Executive Director was hired.

1995

NHHK received its 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt determination through the Internal Revenue Service. In partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire and the state’s twenty-six hospitals, NHHK began covering children, from age 3 to age 18, in an unsubsidized but low-cost managed care plan.

1996

The program extended medical benefits to infants and toddlers and added dental benefits through a partnership with Northeast Delta Dental.

1997

Working closely with schools and health care providers to promote the program, NHHK was successful in enrolling 8% of the state’s uninsured children. Congress created the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and appropriated $24 billion over five years through Title XXI of the Social Security Act to encourage states to expand publicly supported health coverage options for uninsured children.

1998

New Hampshire’s Title XXI Plan was approved in September 1998, creating a new alliance between the Department of Health and Human Services, the NH Healthy Kids Corporation and the Healthy New Hampshire Foundation (now known as the HNHfoundation). The “Every Kid Covered” campaign was launched to create awareness of the expanded options for children’s health insurance.

1999

Enrollment opened in the new subsidized health insurance program for children called Healthy Kids Silver. NHHK took on responsibility for coordinating outreach for the new program as well as for Medicaid which was promoted as Healthy Kids Gold. Best practices in making it easier for families to apply for coverage were implemented such as a mail-in application process.

2000

NHHK celebrates its 5th anniversary in covering kids. The first quality assurance initiative was launched to evaluate family satisfaction. The initiative also evaluated access to, and use of healthcare services in the Healthy Kids programs.

2001

On an overwhelming bipartisan 338-40 roll call vote, the New Hampshire House approved the first state appropriation of $3.5 million to subsidize Healthy Kids coverage for children of working families. This action was later upheld in the State Senate. 

2002

The Department of Health and Human Services and New Hampshire Healthy Kids agreed to centralize the application processing and case management for all the Healthy Kids programs as a way to better serve families and achieve cost savings and increase efficiency. State eligibility workers from DHHS District Offices around the state were transferred into the new centralized mail-in enrollment center at the Healthy Kids corporate headquarters.

2003

For second year in a row, Census Bureau data ranks New Hampshire with third lowest percentage of uninsured children. New Hampshire reduced the rate of uninsured children from 10.8% in 1995 to 5.2% in 2003.

2004

New Hampshire maintained its 3rd best state in the nation ranking for percentage of uninsured children. US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist calls the Healthy Kids programs “a national model.”

2005

In 2005, NH Healthy Kids celebrated its tenth anniversary of covering kids. Over the past decade, NHHK has helped more than 70,000 children in accessing health coverage.