While President Bush claims he supports the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, last fall he vetoed a bipartisan SCHIP bill championed by both Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress. Sadly, Congress failed at that time to override the president’s veto.
Wednesday, the House failed yet again to muster the votes necessary to override the president’s misguided veto and fund this critical source of health insurance coverage for more than 6 million children in this country.
Here in Colorado, SCHIP covers more than 50,000 children and 1,300 pregnant women. The bill would have increased Colorado’s SCHIP funding by 8 percent, or $13 million, allowing us to cover the more than 56,000 children who are eligible but who are not enrolled in the program.
Without reauthorization, Colorado’s SCHIP program will start running a deficit by 2011 — jeopardizing even the kids who are currently enrolled. The Colorado Health Foundation’s recently released “Health Report Card” gave our state a C-minus for care for infants and children, citing areas such as inadequate child nutrition and immunizations. Maintaining and expanding SCHIP to levels proposed by bipartisan Senate and House leadership would be one component of helping to improve our child health care performance here in Colorado.
SCHIP, a joint federal and state program, was first enacted in 1997 with bipartisan support. Its 10-year authorization expired last September, and while it has a temporary extension, members from both sides of the aisle in Congress have been working to renew it.
SCHIP is a comparatively small reimbursement entity for children’s hospitals. Reimbursement provided by Medicaid, for example, dwarfs what they receive from SCHIP. Specifically, Medicaid has provided care to more than 28 million children and on average paid for more than 50 percent of the care provided in children’s hospitals. That’s 22 million more children that those covered by the SCHIP program. Despite SCHIP being a smaller program, children’s hospitals recognize it as an important source of coverage that aligns well with Medicaid. SCHIP fills the gap for children who are not eligible for Medicaid and whose families cannot afford private coverage.
The Bush administration claims the compromise bill would cover children in families of four with incomes up to $82,600. The truth is only two states, New York and New Jersey, would be allowed to offer coverage to families earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. This program is available to Colorado families under 200 percent of federal poverty level, which is an annual income of $41,300 or less for a family of four.
The administration and opponents in Congress say the bill represents the first step toward government-run, “socialized” medicine, and that it would encourage families to move their children from private insurance to SCHIP or “crowd-out” private insurance. The fact is nearly 80 percent of all children covered by the program are enrolled in commercial managed care and fee- for-service plans, and the Congressional Budget Office says the “crowd-out” factor is as low as it could possibly get. Even the health insurance lobby supports the bill.
The current proposed price tag of SCHIP is only a quarter of the cost of Bush’s proposal four years ago to expand government- financed health care for the elderly to include prescription drug coverage. Wednesday’s failure by the House to override the president’s veto is a sad indicator of our commitment to the nation’s most valuable and vulnerable resource: our children.
Jim Shmerling is president and CEO of The Children’s Hospital.
