Washington, DC - Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) applauded the U.S. House of Representative’s passage of H.R. 3162, the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection (CHAMP) Act today. The legislation provides a ten-year reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which was first authorized in 1997 to provide health insurance to low-income children in working families.

“Today is a great day for America’s children, and particularly for Texas’ low-income children,” said Green, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the legislation. “This legislation will allow an additional five million children to access health insurance under SCHIP by providing states with predictable funding and important incentives to enroll the children who are currently eligible for SCHIP but remain un-enrolled.”

The CHAMP Act would alter the current funding formula to base federal funding on states’ projected costs, adjusted for the growth in child population and medical inflation. The bill also provides an important bonus payment as an incentive for states to utilize proven outreach and enrollment tools to identify eligible children and enroll them in SCHIP. These tools include 12 month continuous eligibility; administration verification of assets; elimination of the in-person interview requirement; use of a joint application for Medicaid and SCHIP; automatic renewal; presumptive eligibility; and express lane eligibility. States would receive the bonus payment for implementing four of the seven outreach and enrollment tools.

In addition to these outreach and enrollment provisions, the CHAMP Act includes a separate provision authored by Green to guarantee low-income children 12 months of continuous eligibility. Specifically, the bill stipulates that states like Texas with separate SCHIP programs (as opposed to Medicaid expansion programs) provide 12 months of continuous eligibility for enrolled children in families earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

“Health experts agree that a 12 month guarantee of continuous eligibility is the best way to ensure that we keep eligible children on SCHIP rolls,” said Green. “This provision protects children from the budgetary whims of their states and ensures that states like Texas can no longer erect bureaucratic roadblocks that make it too difficult and too time-consuming for working parents to enroll their children in the program. The passage of this provision is a victory for Texas children.”

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) introduced a bill in March, the SCHIP Annual Re-enrollment Act, which would require states receiving federal SCHIP matching funds to have annual re-enrollment. Annual re-enrollment promotes continuity of care by assuring eligible families that coverage will be maintained for a predictable period of time. Also, annual re-enrollment reduces administrative costs associated with disenrollments, re-enrollments, and redeterminations for the states that currently use a 6-month re-enrollment period. Rep. Gene Green was an original co-sponsor of this bill.