Reality Check (National Journal, Jan. 12, 2008)

States cover 696,473 adults through the children’s health program, not including pregnant women. If that funding were restricted to health care for needy children only, an additional 1,114,356 children could receive health care with no increase in spending.

Source: CRS, Domestic Social Policy Division
            Department of Health and Human Services/CMS Data

Who Covers the Most Kids?

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported yesterday that the administration's 2008 budget will cover 2.9 million kids in SCHIP in 2017, and that renewing the current program without change will cover 5.6 million children in 2017. CBO projects that H.R. 976 will cover 1.3 million kids in 2017. 

Source: CBO

NY to U.S. Taxpayers: Thanks!

Does the State of New York get a special deal for high-income New Yorkers to get on SCHIP?

The New York Times says Albany wants one. The New York Legislature, “agreed to Mr. Spitzer’s plan to set the nation’s highest income ceiling for state-financed health care for children,” according to the April 2, 2007 New York Times. “The new state budget will raise that to 400 percent — $82,600 for a family of four — the highest in the country.”

And the non-partisan Congressional Research Service says that H.R. 976 has got the exception that New York needs to put them on SCHIP, the health program for poor children:

“An exception is provided in Section 114 for states that already provide coverage above 300% of poverty as of the date of enactment of the bill, pursuant to an approved state plan amendment or a waiver, and for states that, as of the date of enactment of the bill, have ‘enacted a State law to submit a State plan amendment to provide’ for expenditures for child health assistance or health benefits coverage for a targeted low-income child whose effective family income exceeds 300% FPL.

“The State of New York has enacted a budget bill (2007-2008 Health and Mental Hygiene Budget, S.2108-C/A4308-C) that appears to meet the criteria described above allowing a state to be grandfathered in under the exception to the limitation on FMAP in Section 114 of H.R. 976.”

So could people making $80,000 a year in New York be eligible for SCHIP?

“It depends on what the State of New York decides to do,” the speaker told CNN on Sept. 25.

Sources:

CRS Memo

Link to The New York Times story

Speaker Pelosi on CNN

Robin Hood in Reverse

Some say that H.R. 976 does not increase eligibility for taxpayer-paid health care under SCHIP. …Wait a minute. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s scoring projects that SCHIP will expand by 1.2 million people whose incomes are too high to qualify now. (Montgomery Burns, call your office.)

Source: CBO Score of H.R. 976

The SCHIP Switcheroo: What Happens When Social Policy Replaces Insurance Policies

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 50 percent of the upper-income enrollees added to SCHIP under the Democrats’ proposal currently have private health insurance but will drop their current health insurance coverage and shift these costs to the taxpayers.

Source: CBO Score of H.R. 976

The ‘C’ in SCHIP Is for Children, Except When It’s Not

According to the states’ budget projections, 13 will spend more than 44 percent of their SCHIP funds in 2008 on people who are neither children nor pregnant women.

Michigan tops the list with 71.6 percent of its SCHIP money earmarked for adults who have no kids. In New Mexico, 52.3 percent of the state’s SCHIP dollars will be spent on childless adults.

Source: Department of Health and Human Services/CMS Data

The $6 Billion Giveaway: Medicaid and SCHIP for Illegal Aliens

People who broke the law to come to America aren’t eligible for welfare, including Medicaid and SCHIP, and nearly everyone thinks that’s a good idea except Democrats in Washington. They want an SCHIP extension bill that removes the pesky requirement for checking the identity and citizenship of people who apply for Medicaid and SCHIP benefits. 

H.R. 976 says that simply writing down a Social Security number is good enough to prove you are a citizen, although the commissioner of the Social Security Administration says emphatically that Social Security numbers are laughable as proof of citizenship because thousands are issued every year to non-citizens. Moreover, the Democrats’ SCHIP bill doesn’t even require that an applicant flash an ID to demonstrate that he or she could be the actual owner of the number.  

Census Bureau data (2004-2006) show that 1 in 5.5 children living under 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level don’t have health care coverage even though they’re eligible for government programs.

Republicans propose requiring states to cover at least 90 percent of these neediest kids  before trying to find any more. The Democrats’ plan has no requirement to cover the poorest kids first. Instead, it just leaves them behind.