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Coming Soon: A Down Payment on Health Care Reform


The battle over the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) was one of the most emotional battles of between Congress and the White House during the Bush Administration’s waining years. Twice, bi-partisan majorities of Congress passed the reauthorization legislation. Twice President George Bush vetoed the bill. Although the votes for an override were available in the Senate, it narrowly lost in the House. That’s now about to change. Congress is working hard to have a reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) ready for the new president’s signature as soon as possible — it will be tough, but possibly even on inauguration day.

SCHIP provides health insurance for children in households that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but are unable to afford private coverage. States administer the program and, within federal guidelines, may adjust eligibility. They also pay a significant portion of the program’s cost. Currently, about six million children are covered in the popular program.

Congress twice voted to expand the SCHIP program in late 2007, but could not muster enough votes in the House of Representatives to overcome President George Bush’s vetoes. That was then. Now Democrats have stronger majoirites in both the House and Senate. Even more significantly, President-elect Barack Obama is a supporter of the expansion.

According to the Associated Press, discussions on how to approach the SCHIP reauthorization have been underway in Washington. Although there was some thought of including SCHIP expansion in the forthcoming economic stimulus package, the decision seems to have been made to move forward with the stand-alone bill. While not promising to have the legislation ready for signature on inauguration day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised “we’ll be done soon,” according to AP.

The first test for the SCHIP reauthorization will be in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Committee’s chair, Congressman Henry Waxman, called passing the legislation a “down payment on national health insurance.”

Passage of the SCHIP reauthorization would be more than a symbolic breaking with the past. The current recession is placing greater demands on safety net programs like SCHIP. In addition, states pay a significant portion of the coverage provided by SCHIP (from 17 percent to 35 percent depending on the state). Knowing where the program stands — and how much funding they can expect — is of critical importance to state lawmakers struggling with their own hemorrhaging budgets.

How Congress will pay for expanding the program still needs to be worked out. In 2007 the legislation included a 61-cent per pack tax on cigarettes. This was expected to allow the program to insure as many as 10 million children.

SCHIP is a critical component of the patchwork quilt that is America’s health care system. A majority of both Democrats and Republicans agreed it should have happened over a year ago. That it took a new Congress and a new President to get the job done demonstrates how hard achieving comprehensive and meaningful health care reform will be. But to use Congressman Waxman’s terminology, it’s a down payment well worth making.

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