Forty-six million Americans, including 9 million children, are uninsured, and the problem is growing. To combat this situation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is working to support federal solutions and state-based innovations to move the country closer to the ultimate goal of affordable and stable health care coverage for all Americans. The Foundation supports several complementary initiatives that work at the state level to expand coverage, including the three featured in this interactive story:

• Consumer Voices for Coverage is assisting in building a single, integrated health care advocacy network in selected states. The program seeks to strengthen state consumer health advocacy networks through an infusion of new resources, policy support and technical assistance. It is helping to build effective health care consumer advocacy and infrastructure as critical forces in the health care reform policy-making process.
• State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) provides timely, experience-based information and assistance to state officials in order to help them move health care reform forward at the state level. SCI offers an integrated array of policy and technical assistance services and products to help state officials with coverage expansions as well as with broader health care reform.
• State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC), based at the University of Minnesota, helps states monitor rates of health insurance coverage and to understand factors associated with lack of insurance. In addition to providing health policy analysis, SHADAC provides technical assistance to federal agencies that conduct health insurance surveys, and states that conduct their own surveys and/or use data from national surveys. The goal is to help bridge the gap between health insurance data and the policy making process.

Together, these and other Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiatives are building support at the state level for meaningful, sustainable health care reform.

In addition to these three programs, the Foundation also has major investments in state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) through the following:

• Maximizing Enrollment for Kids works to increase enrollment and retention of eligible children in Medicaid and CHIP by helping states streamline their systems, policies and procedures and to measure the impact of these changes.
• The Medicaid Leadership Institute (MLI) offers a unique opportunity for state Medicaid directors to develop and enhance the skills and expertise to both improve their state programs as well as maximize Medicaid's contribution to health system transformation.