SCHIP renewal expected, but funding remains the question

Congress is considering ensuring coverage for all eligible children -- a move that would cost billions.

By Doug Trapp, AMNews staff. Dec. 11, 2006.

Washington -- Not only are lawmakers planning next year to reauthorize a state-federal health program for low-income children, some want to bolster it. But legislators have to work out the financing first.

Bipartisan support exists in Congress for reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which is set to expire Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2007.

SCHIP was created in 1997 as a way to cover the 10 million uninsured children in America at that time. Today it covers 6 million children. But because of the rapid growth in the uninsured, between 7.5 million and 10 million children remain without coverage, according to various estimates.

"This means that, despite our best efforts, we have taken a step backwards in terms of covering children," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D, W.Va.).

Some 6 million eligible children are not enrolled in SCHIP, which covers children in families with incomes too high for Medicaid but too low for private insurance. Some Democrats want to shore up the program to bring these children into the fold.

"It is essential to build on the promise of SCHIP by not only extending the program, but strengthening it as well," wrote Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), the incoming chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, in a press release outlining his priorities.

But the budget could be a problem. If federal SCHIP funding remains at $5 billion, the amount allotted for fiscal 2007, states could face a cumulative shortfall of $12 billion by 2012 because of cost increases, notes a July analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The group focuses on the effects fiscal policy and public programs have on low- and moderate-income Americans. That means states would not have the resources to cover the children already in the program, much less those who are eligible but not enrolled, the center found.