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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-CA) applauded the bipartisan agreement to reauthorize and expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for an additional five years. The Children’s Health Insurance Program, known in California as Healthy Families, is an important partnership between the federal and state government to provide healthcare to children whose parents either cannot afford insurance or who hold jobs that lack healthcare benefits.
“This is a significant step forward in our effort to provide vital health care for tens of thousand of children on the Central and South Coasts and millions of children across the country,” said Capps, a nurse and Member of a House Subcommittee on Health. “As a nurse I know the power and prudence of comprehensive health care for children. Today’s bipartisan agreement will strengthen and expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program so we can provide our nation’s neediest kids with the health care they need to grow up safe, smart, and strong. This package will improve the quality of care children receive by covering dental and mental health care and it will prohibit the Bush Administration’s misguided bureaucratic hurdles that attempt to deny care for kids. I look forward to passing this legislation next week and I hope that President Bush will reconsider his misguided veto threat.”
The $35 billion agreement will provide vital health coverage to approximately ten million children in need – preserving coverage for all 6 million children currently covered by CHIP, and reaching millions more low-income, uninsured American children in the next five years. The legislation will provide more comprehensive health care by including dental coverage and mental health services.
The agreement also incorporates aspects of legislation introduced earlier this week by Congresswoman Capps and her colleagues Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA) that protects children’s access to health care. Their legislation, H.R. 3555, would stop the Bush Administration’s new policy to prevent States from providing quality health coverage to children in need under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Today’s agreement prevents the implementation of a misguided August 17th directive from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) outlining several bureaucratic guidelines for states that provide CHIP eligibility to children above 250 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). In place of the CMS letter, the agreement gives states time and assistance in developing and implementing best practices to address crowd out. The agreement also puts the lowest income children first in line by phasing in a new requirement for coverage of low-income children as a condition of receiving CHIP funding for coverage of children above 300 percent of the poverty level.
The legislative language is currently being finalized and will be available on Monday. The House of Representatives will likely vote on legislation implementing this agreement on Tuesday of next week. The Senate will take up the measure shortly there after in order to provide a full renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program to the President for signature into law before CHIP’s current authorization expires on September 30.
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Pictured above: (center) Congresswoman Capps meets with Central Coast firefighters to discuss emergency preparedness.
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