UPDATE: White House Acts to Limit Health Plan for Children

The Bush Administration has implemented new standards that limit the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The administration has adopted these standards in order to restore the program to its original focus on low-income children. When the SCHIP was created in 1997, the purpose was to provide coverage to children of low-income families, and the execution of this program was to be determined by the state. The only stipulation was that this program could not be a replacement for private coverage. To prevent children from switching from private coverage to the public SCHIP, the administration suggests that states create a waiting period before considering children eligible for the public program.

Now, in order for states to make individual changes to SCHIP, they must first demonstrate that they have enrolled at least 95% of children below 200% of the poverty level. “Deborah S. Bachrach, a deputy commissioner in the New York State Health Department, said, ‘No state in the nation has a participation rate of 95 percent.’” Several states, including New York and New Jersey feel these new standards will be impossible to meet and will hinder efforts to insure more children.

Click here to read the full article.