Kaiser Health News, By Mary Agnes Cary

Cost sharing would increase and the  number of child-specific services covered would decline if millions of low-income children now enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) were forced to receive coverage through the health law’s insurance exchanges, according to a study released Tuesday.

CHIP enrollees in some states could see their cost sharing increase 10-fold if they were transitioned to exchange plans, according to the analysis from the Wakely Consulting Group done for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Those costs include substantial increases in estimated out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance. The impact could be even more costly for families who have children with special health care needs.

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