Senate Democrats Expect To Approve SCHIP Reauthorization, Expansion Legislation This Week

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 27 Jan 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Friday said the Senate would approve SCHIP reauthorization and expansion legislation this week, CQ Today reports (Jansen, CQ Today, 1/23). Reid said that SCHIP "is a critical program as states begin to run out of money for children's health care," adding, "We're going to start working on this Monday and pass this bill" by the end of the week (Armstrong, CQ Today, 1/23). The program is set to expire on March 1.

Under the expansion bill, which is similar to a measure that former President George W. Bush vetoed in 2007, children in families with incomes of up to three times the federal poverty level would qualify for the program. Supporters of the bill say it will raise the number of children covered by SCHIP from about seven million to about 11 million (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 1/16). The measure would extend the program for four-and-one-half years and would increase spending by at least $31.5 billion. The bill would be funded mainly by a 61-cent-per-pack increase in the federal cigarette tax and tax increases on other tobacco products (Freking, AP/Las Vegas Sun, 1/24). Senate passage of the measure would trigger a conference with the House, which amended the Senate version into its own bill passed earlier this month.

Republican supporters of past legislation that would have expanded SCHIP have criticized several provisions of the current measure, but "Democrats, with a bigger majority in the new Congress, need their support less now," CQ Today reports. The bill would eliminate a five-year waiting period to qualify for SCHIP coverage for new and documented immigrants, and it includes looser citizenship and eligibility documentation requirements (Armstrong, CQ Today, 1/23). Reid said that he expects the immigration waiting-period waiver to remain in the measure through the Senate amendment process. He said, "Some people want to make this a debate about immigration. This isn't a debate about immigration. It's a debate about taking care of our children, children who are here legally" (Edney, CongressDaily, 1/23).

Republicans also expressed opposition to allowing higher-income families to qualify for SCHIP. Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), said, "I don't believe it's good public policy for a family with an income of $83,000 to be able to get onto SCHIP." However, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said, "It would be irresponsible for the federal government to cap funding to the states when working families need more public assistance, not less" (AP/Las Vegas Sun, 1/24).

Reid said, "I hope that we don't have to file cloture" to restrict debate on the bill, adding, "At the end of the week, if we find that there is a wide delay and not a responsiveness to get the bill concluded, then we will decide whether we should do something procedurally" (Armstrong, CQ Today, 1/23).

Opinion Piece
"Obama has vowed to convene a 'fiscal responsibility summit'" to help "chart a path toward what has been called a 'grand bargain'" that includes, "among other things making the entitlement menu -- particularly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are more than 40% of federal spending -- manageable," but the House, "evidently believing that the nation is so flush that there is no need for restraint, voted to make matters worse by enriching that menu" with an expansion of SCHIP, Washington Post columnist George Will writes. According to Will, the passage of the bill, which will "make it much easier for some states to extend SCHIP eligibility to children from families earning up to $84,800," is "vengeance for [former President George W.] Bush's veto" of similar legislation in 2007.

He writes that "this is the Congress" with which Obama will "try to strike a grand bargain," adding that he might not "be president long enough to get a Democratic Congress to agree to the shape of the table at which to bargain." In the event that Obama "does tackle the problem of the teetering entitlement system, he will do so at an unpropitious moment: Events are making reform more necessary while making it seem less urgent," Will writes (Washington Post, 1/25).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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