|
WASHINGTON, DC –Today, the House of Representatives passed a flawed reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. This legislation would change the program’s mission of focusing on working with states to cover low-income children whose families do not have health insurance. Under the Democrat bill, states would be encouraged to enroll higher income families before serving already eligible poor and low-income children. The bill also eliminates current requirements that applicants for SCHIP and Medicaid prove their citizenship status, opening the door for illegal immigrants to access taxpayer-funded benefits. In response to the bill’s passage, Congressman Henry Brown (R-SC) made the following statement:
“I have always been an ardent supporter of the SCHIP program, as it is essential to providing the neediest children with health insurance. However, this reauthorization doesn’t do anything to ensure that the children this program targets are insured before expanding it beyond what was originally intended. In fact, under the bill, states will be forced to cover many who already have their own private insurance.
Instead of focusing on covering the thousands of children who are eligible but not enrolled in SCHIP, the Democrats’ expansion focuses on covering kids in families making as much as $86,000 a year, and pushing them into a government-run program. Covering more of the uninsured is a goal that Republicans and Democrats share – Congress should focus on that instead of on crowding kids into socialized medicine.”
Congressman Brown, along with other Congressional Republicans who have been strong supporters of the SCHIP program, sent a letter to the Democratic Leadership outlining their priorities for SCHIP reauthorization. With today’s passage, the Democrat plan moves to the Senate for consideration. For more information on Congressman Brown’s positions on the nation’s health care system, go to: http://brown.house.gov/Issues/healthcare.html.
|
|
