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Children's Health Insurance Program's Future Uncertain

by Tom Henderson (Subscribe to Tom Henderson's posts)
Jan 4th 2010 4:54PM

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Filed under: In The News

Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va) has fought to keep the Children's Health Insurance Program in the Senate's Health Care Reform Bill. Credit: Alex Wong, Getty Images

As Congress builds a new national health care policy, critics worry it might be leaving cracks big enough for millions of vulnerable children to fall through.

The biggest questions revolve around the Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP covers more than nine million children and pregnant women. However, it may be a square peg that doesn't fit any of health care reform's round holes.

The House version of the health care bill kills CHIP. It puts children on Medicare or directs their families to buy them private insurance with financial assistance from the federal government.

This concerns organizations such as the Urban Institute, a Washington-based public interest research group, The New York Times reports.

"Attention must be paid to the possibility that some children who lose CHIP coverage could fall through the cracks and become uninsured," Genevieve M. Kenney and Allison Cook wrote last month in a brief prepared for the group.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., tells the Times it's hard to justify government footing the bill for children once families have access to subsidies.

But it's not that simple, Jocelyn A. Guyer tells the Times. She's the co-executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University.

Between CHIP and Medicaid, the United States has made huge strides in providing health coverage for low-income children, she tells the newspaper.

"It would be a major problem if health reform undercut these gains by shutting CHIP down too abruptly or by moving kids into coverage that isn't as affordable and as well-designed to get them the care they need to develop and grow," she adds.

Then there is the problem of immigrant children. Some have a parent who is in the country illegally. Both the Senate and House versions of the bill refuse subsidies for illegal immigrants.

The Times reports that this could eliminate health insurance for 14 percent of the children now getting help. The Senate and House bills provide for child-only insurance policies, but it's unclear how those policies would work in the face of immigration issues, the Times reports.

The House and Senate bills also push people to buy employer-sponsored health insurance, except when it would be too expensive for low-income workers. But then that's why CHIP was created. Many workers already enroll their children in the program because private coverage is too costly.

Democratic Sens. John Rockefeller of West Virginia and Robert Casey of Pennsylvania are pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to extend CHIP funding for two more years to make sure there are no rude surprises for children currently in the program.

Rockefeller tells the Times he's willing to go to war with his colleagues to preserve CHIP.

"I am not going to drop kids," he tells the paper.

Related: Lack of Health Insurance May Raise Stress Levels

Tags: Healthcare Reform Children CHIP Medicare Waxman Rockefeller, HealthcareReformChildrenChipMedicareWaxmanRockefeller

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