Senate Begins Debate on SCHIP Reauthorization
August 2, 2007
Senate Begins Debate on SCHIP Reauthorization
Debate began July 31st on a bill now before the Senate that would reauthorize
the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which is set to expire
next month. As expected, in hours of debate, Senators differed on whether the
program that provides health insurance to children in working-poor families
should be reined in or expanded, though all Senators who spoke favored
continuing the program at some level. A bill reported by a large majority in the
Senate Finance Committee last week calls for increasing federal spending for
SCHIP by $35 billion over the next five years, to enable states to bring
additional children into the program, while the Bush administration in its
proposed budget for next year calls for an increase of only $5 billion over five
years, which would limit SCHIP largely to children already being covered. In the
Senate, the debate triggered questions about whether adults and parents should
also be covered by SCHIP, and how high states should be allowed to set the
income levels at which families are eligible for the program. It was also
pointed out that there is wide diversity between states in the way SCHIP
operates, as the result of waivers that have been granted to states by the
federal Department of Health and Human Services. Debate on the bill is expected
to continue all of this week.