Nevada treasurer brings back baby bonds bill for births covered by Medicaid

By Lucia Starbuck

KUNR Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Nevada’s treasurer is bringing back legislation from two years ago to create financial bonds for some babies.

Treasurer Zach Conine wants to create a $3,200 bond for births covered by Medicaid. He estimates that’ll grow to somewhere between $10,000 to $13,000 by the time the child turns 18. It could be used for education, starting a business, or buying a home.

“The goal is to make sure that we provide people with enough fuel to kind of break out of the orbit of poverty because it’s cyclical, and the individuals who you see being able to break out of that generally have help from something,” Conine said.

Last session, the bill called for creating a bond for every Medicaid covered birth, but he ended up compromising, changing to a lottery system to cover about 750 babies. Still, the bill did not pass out of both chambers. More than 13,000 births are covered by Medicaid in Nevada, roughly 42%.

So far, Connecticut, California, and Washington, DC have funded this type of initiative, according to Nonprofit Quarterly.

Conine said the baby bonds will save the state money if fewer people become reliant on services such as Medicaid, WIC, and SNAP benefits.