Second Children's Health Bill Makes Significant Changes to Focus More Heavily on Poor Children
Changes Answer Criticisms of Earlier, Vetoed Bill
End Notes
[1] Congressional Budget Office, “CBO’s Estimate of Changes in SCHIP and Medicaid Enrollment of Children Under the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007,” October 24, 2007 and Congressional Budget Office, “CBO’s Estimate of the Effects on Direct Spending and Revenues of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007,” October 24, 2007.
[2] See Robert Greenstein, “Poor Children First — Or Last?,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 17, 2007.
[3] See Edwin Park, “CBO Estimates Show SCHIP Agreement Would Provide Health Insurance to 3.8 Million Uninsured Children,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Congressional Budget Office, “CBO’s Estimate of Changes in SCHIP and Medicaid Enrollment of Children Under the House Amendments to the Senate Amendments to H.R. 976, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007,” September 24, 2007. See also Genevieve Kenney et al., “SCHIP Reauthorization: How Will Low-income Children Benefit Under the House and Senate Bills?” Urban Institute, as updated on November 8, 2007 at http://www.urban.org/publications/411545.html.
[4] Jocelyn Guyer, “Coverage of Uninsured Children in Moderate-Income Families under SCHIP,” Center for Children and Families, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, October 2007.
[5] See “Charge that Bipartisan SCHIP Compromise Bill Aids Undocumented Immigrants Is False,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 25, 2007.
[6] Vernon Smith et al., “As Tough Times Wane, States Act to Improve Medicaid Coverage and Quality,” Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, October 2007. See also Government Accountability Office, “States Reported That Citizenship Documentation Requirement Resulted in Enrollment Declines for Eligible Citizens and Posed Administrative Burdens,” June 2007; “Medicaid Citizenship Documentation Requirements Deny Coverage to Citizens And Cost Taxpayers Millions,” Majority Staff, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, July 24, 2007; Donna Cohen Ross, “Medicaid Requirement Disproportionately Harms Non-Hispanics, State Data Show,” Center On Budget and Policy Priorities, July 10, 2007, and “New Medicaid Citizenship Documentation Requirement Is Taking A Toll,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 13, 2007.
[7] For a comprehensive analysis of how the second SCHIP bill ensures that ineligible undocumented immigrants do not enroll in Medicaid and SCHIP, see Judith Solomon and Allison Orris, “New Children’s Health Legislation Would Not Allow Any Undocumented Immigrants to Enroll in SCHIP or Medicaid,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, December 3, 2007.
[8] See, for example, White House, “Press Briefing Via Conference Call by Senior Administration Officials on SCHIP Reauthorization,” October 17, 2007.
[9] See “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.
[10] It is also important to note that this CBO estimate is widely misunderstood. A large share of the SCHIP “crowd-out,” as estimated by CBO, involves children who are uninsured now but who eventually would obtain private coverage if SCHIP coverage were not available. These are not children who had private insurance which their families voluntarily dropped for public program coverage. 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] To qualify for incentive payments for enrolling more of the eligible but uninsured children, states would have to adopt for their Medicaid and SCHIP programs at least five of eight enrollment and retention strategies listed in the bill, one of which is premium assistance. This should result in more states implementing premium assistance programs.