http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=858pResident Bush’s Misstatements on Children’s Health Insurance Bill Continue
October 17th, 2007 by Office of the Speaker
At his press conference today, President Bush continued his misstatements regarding H.R. 976, the Children’s Health Insurance bill. The President gave three key reasons why he vetoed the bill, which would provide health care coverage for 10 million children, on October 3rd. Each of the three reasons he gave for vetoing the bill reflect a misunderstanding of the bill and its provisions, as shown below.
PRESIDENT’S REASON #1 FOR VETO: President Bush: “There are
500,000 children who are eligible for the current program who aren’t covered. … I want to provide enough money to make sure those 500,000 do get covered. That ought to be the focus of our efforts.”
THE FACTS: Research has shown that 6 million children, not 500,000, are eligible for public health care coverage but are not enrolled. Much of the widely-accepted research on the number of uninsured children eligible for public coverage was conducted by the Health Policy Center of the Urban Institute. These researchers have estimated that six million uninsured children are eligible for public coverage but are not enrolled, with approximately two million eligible for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and four million eligible for Medicaid.
It is estimated that this bipartisan children’s health insurance bill would provide health care coverage for about 4 million of the 6 million children who are eligible but currently not enrolled.
Furthermore, the President’s CHIP proposal doesn’t even cover the 6.6 million children who are currently enrolled in CHIP – let alone providing coverage to the 500,000 uninsured children he mentions. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 700,000 children would lose their Children’s Health Insurance coverage under the President’s CHIP proposal.
In addition, the bipartisan children’s health insurance bill is designed to target precisely the low-income children that the President has stated he is concerned about. The measure ensures that states must cover their lowest-income kids first by phasing in a new requirement for coverage of low-income children as a condition of receiving CHIP funding for coverage of children above 300 percent of the poverty level. After October 1, 2010, federal matching payments are not permitted to States that cover children whose family incomes exceed 300 percent of poverty, if the State does not meet a target for the percentage of children at or below 200 percent of poverty enrolled in CHIP. The target rate would be the average rate of insurance coverage (public and private) among the highest-ranking 10 States. In reality, CHIP focuses virtually all of its resources on children in the poorest working families, fewer than 1 in 10 kids covered under CHIP lives in a family of four earning more than $41,000 a year.
PRESIDENT’S REASON #2 FOR VETO: President Bush: “The eligibility has been increased up to $83,000. That doesn’t sound like it’s a program for poor children to me.”
THE FACTS: Below is how Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT), Charles Grassley (R-IA), John Rockefeller (D-NY) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) explain why this statement of the President’s is wrong.
The bill does not raise the eligibility level for CHIP . While the State of New York did ask the Department of Health and Human Services for approval to raise eligibility to 400% of poverty, the Secretary rejected New York’s request. The compromise bill replaces HHS’s flawed August 17 policy on crowd-out with a more reasoned approach, but this does not force the approval of any state plan to cover children at higher income levels. As under current law, the decision to approve state requests to change CHIP eligibility still rests with the Administration, not with Congress.
No state has received approval from the Administration to expand CHIP eligibility to 400% of poverty. And even if the compromise bill were signed into law, no child in a family with an income of $83,000 would be eligible for CHIP unless it were approved by the Administration.
To say that the compromise bill increases coverage for the upper middle class is flatly wrong. The truth is that the bill actually moves in the opposite direction – focusing policies and incentives exclusively on targeted low income children. First, the bill establishes a new financial incentive for states to enroll children below 200 percent of poverty. The compromise bill provides bonuses to states for enrollment of eligible but uninsured Medicaid children.… Second, the bill limits the federal matching rate for states that want to expand eligibility for children in families over 300% of poverty. That is a clear disincentive for states to expand eligibility to higher income levels. Finally, the bill establishes a new policy for states that want to expand eligibility. These states must meet certain targets for coverage of children below 200 percent by 2010, or risk the loss of any federal matching funds for children in families with incomes over 300 percent. The bill makes clear that any state wishing to cover children at higher incomes in the future must first cover its poorest children.
PRESIDENT’S REASON #3 FOR VETO: President Bush: “In six or seven states, spends more money on adults than children.”
THE FACTS: It is true that there are approximately 6.6 million children and 600,000 adults currently enrolled in the CHIP program. That is because certain states determined that they could enroll more eligible children if they also enrolled their parents. However, this bipartisan children’s health insurance bill places the priority on children’s coverage – and therefore PHASES OUT the coverage of parents and childless adults over a two-year period. Only optional coverage for pregnant women remains under the bill. If the President wants non-pregnant adults out of the CHIP program, he should have signed the bill. By vetoing this bipartisan bill, the President is continuing the current policy of covering non-pregnant adults with CHIP money.
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