“It’s an excellent program. As far as it not getting funding — that’s a disgrace,” said Dr. Dick Gingery of Montrose County Health and Human Services.
Had it not been vetoed, the bipartisan bill would have expanded health insurance to millions of children from lower-income families through a $35 billion increase in program funding. Bush said he would support a $5 billion increase over five years, which would be a 20-percent increase over the current level of funding.
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“With the stroke of his pen, the president is denying coverage to over 100,000 Colorado children and nearly 10 million children nationwide,” said Senator Ken Salazar, D-Colo., during a media conference call Wednesday.
“(Democrats and Republicans) asked the president to do the right thing and take the side of the children and what the president did here is, he decided to throw the children of Colorado and the children of America, in my view, under the bus.”
Colorado’s program, CHP+, is currently funded for the 2007-2008 fiscal year, Director of CHP+ Bill Heller said. The veto did not affect its budget.
The program allows states to rollover previous year’s funding up to three years, he said, so with the rollover funding, Colorado’s program should still be able to support its current participants for at least another year, possibly two. This is if the program’s participant numbers or healthcare costs do not drastically increase.
Heller said the CHP+ is currently working on its budget, which it will submit in the November legislative sessions.
“We don’t want to lose the program. Certainly there will be a point, if they don’t do continuing a resolution or reauthorize the program, once those carry-over funds run out, yes, it could be an issue. But there are so many factors still in play.”
The Senate passed the bill Sept. 27 with enough votes, a two-thirds majority, to override Bush’s veto. The House, however, fell short of overriding by a 265 to 159 vote on Sept 25.
“At this point, because of the fight over the program, they still need to have it reauthorized,” Gingery said.
“The argument right now is not if it’s a good program or a bad program,” Heller said. “Both sides support the program — it’s how big they want to support it.”
In July, CHP+ reported 56,618 Colorado children, from infants to 18-year-olds, were enrolled, but approximately 97,114 are eligible. The $35 billion more in funding would have helped increase the number insured.
“This is a population of kids whose parents make too much money for Medicaid but not enough to afford (private insurance),” Gingery said.
According to Montrose County Health and Human Services, there about 11,000 children in Montrose County who are eligible for CHP+. Gingery said about 16 percent of children in Montrose County are not insured.
“Eighteen thousand-plus people die each year simply because they don’t have health insurance,” he said. “If we find we are adding kids to the uninsured pool, that means an increasing number of children will be added to those statistics.”
For more information on CHP+ visit www.cchp.org.
Contact Kati O’Hare via e-mail at katio@montrosepress.com
Clearing the air
The Bush White House says cost isn’t the only reason for his veto. He believes several problems exist with Congress’ SCHIP bill in addition to raising spending by $35 billion to $50 billion, the legislation:
1. Turns a program meant to help poor children into one that covers children in some households with incomes of up to $83,000 a year. (Because the Senate bill grandfathers in New York at a higher SCHIP match rate than the rest of the county. New Jersey’s program is also grandfathered to include families with incomes of $72,000 a year.)
2. Would move millions of children who have private health insurance into government-run health care.
3. Raises taxes.
4. Relies on a budget that drops SCHIP funding by almost 80 percent in year six, masking future deficits and resulting in a choice between higher taxes or forcing millions of children to lose insurance.
5. Invites states to overspend their budget and shift health care costs to the federal government by using SCHIP funding to off-set state Medicaid spending.
6. Provides incentives to relax protections against enrolling ineligible individuals, including illegal immigrants.
Source: White House Web site. Visit www.whitehouse.gov for a full list of the president’s position.
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