Reality Check (National Journal, Jan. 12, 2008)
"Eliminating existing adult coverage [as part of a reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program] ... would do little to solve SCHIP's funding issues."
-- Senate Democratic Policy Committee
Not so fast. As the battle over the program's reauthorization carries over into 2008, a November report from the Government Accountability Office could give Republicans ammunition to buttress the argument that SCHIP funds should be reserved for kids. The GAO studied 10 states that provide health care coverage to adults through SCHIP and found that, overall, although adults made up an average of 40 percent of program enrollment, they accounted for about 54 percent of total SCHIP expenditures.
-- Marilyn Werber Serafini
How to Care for 1,114,356 More Kids
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, adults cost on average 60 percent more to cover than children. Under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, each $1 spent to insure an adult is $1 that is unavailable to cover a low-income, uninsured child.
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.)
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20080915215152im_/http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/Media/Image/CBO_Adults_HR976.jpg)
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.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that erasing the mechanism that reserves welfare for Americans instead of illegal aliens will cost U.S. taxpayers an extra $3.7 billion in federal spending and $2.8 billion in added state spending.
Source: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/86xx/doc8655/hr976.pdf
Neediest Children Left Behind?
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.
State Children at or below At or below 200% of poverty Percentage at or below 200% of
200% of poverty with no health insurance poverty with no health insurance
(including Medicaid and SCHIP) (including Medicaid and SCHIP)
California 4,223,000 829,000 19.6%
Illinois 1,186,000 217,000 18.3
Maryland 401,000 75,000 18.7
Nevada 253,000 63,000 24.9
New Jersey 540,000 119,000 22.0
New York 1,930,000 228,000 11.8
Source: Census Bureau