CBO Estimates Show SCHIP Bill Would Provide Health Insurance to 4.1 Million Uninsured Children
End Notes
[1] Congressional Budget Office, “CBO’s Preliminary Estimate of Changes in SCHIP and Medicaid Enrollment in Fiscal Year 2013 of Children Under the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009,” January 13, 2009.
[2] The “baseline” assumes SCHIP funding will remain frozen at $5 billion annually for the next five years even as health care costs continue to increase and more children become eligible, a scenario that CBO has determined would cause the number of children covered under SCHIP to decline significantly as state SCHIP programs faced federal funding shortfalls.
[3] Congressional Budget Office, “Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate for H.R. 2, Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009,” January 13, 2009 and Congressional Budget Office, “CBO’s Preliminary Estimate of the Effects on Direct Spending and Revenues of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009,” January 13, 2009.
[4] Research has shown that reducing coverage of low-parent parents lowers participation among eligible children in public programs. (See Leighton Ku, “Collateral Damage: Children Can Lose Coverage When Their Parents Lose Health Insurance,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 17, 2007.) In response to a question during the Senate Finance Committee’s July 2007 mark-up of SCHIP legislation, then-CBO director Peter Orszag explained that “restricting eligibility to parents does have an effect on take up among children…. for every 3 or 4 parents you lose, you might lose 1 or 2 kids, for example.”
[5] The provision was also previously passed by the Senate in 2003 as part of the original Senate-passed version of Medicare prescription drug legislation.
[6] Data from the National Immigration Law Center, October 2008.
[7] See, for example, “The President’s Comments on Congress’ SCHIP Plan,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 20, 2007 and Robert Greenstein, “The Administration’s Dubious Claims about the Emerging Children’s Health Insurance Legislation: Myths and Realities,” Revised July 20, 2007.
[8] See Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi from House Republican Leader John Boehner and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, January 9, 2009.
[9] See, for example, Edwin Park, “CBO Estimates Show SCHIP Agreement Would Provide Health Insurance to 3.8 Million Uninsured Children,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Revised September 25, 2007.
[10] See Leighton Ku, “’Crowd-Out’ Is Not the Same as Voluntarily Dropping Private Health Insurance for Public Program Coverage,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 27, 2007.
[11] “SCHIP: Governors, Health Officials, Seek Withdrawal of CMS Rules Targeting ‘Crowd-Out’ by SCHIP,” BNA Health Care Daily, August 31, 2007.
[12] See, for example, Mike Leavitt, “Reforming Health Care,” Washington Times, July 9, 2007.
[13] Jonathan Gruber, “The Cost and Coverage Impact of the President’s Health Insurance Budget Proposals,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 15, 2006.
[14] Jonathan Gruber, “Tax Policy for Health Insurance,” Working Paper 10977, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2004. See also Jonathan Gruber, “Covering the Uninsured in the U.S.,” Working Paper 13758, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2008.
[15] Letter from Jonathan Gruber to Representative John Dingell, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, March 2007.