Yesterday the U.S. Congress acted to expand both funding for the Iraq war and children’s health insurance at the same time. Contained in the war funding bill signed by the President yesterday is approximately $650 million in emergency money for states to fund their SCHIP programs. Around $80 million will go to Massachusetts.
SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, is a highly successful initiative that provides quality, affordable health care coverage for children. In Massachusetts alone, almost 82,000 are covered by SCHIP (a good overview is here).
SCHIP has been facing a significant financial crisis across the nation and is due to be re-authorized this year. As of February, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services projected over $624 million in shortfalls, including our $80 million shortfall. This funding should ensure that Massachusetts has enough federal support to cover our program through this federal fiscal year (which runs through September). Before today’s legislation passed Congress, Massachusetts anticipated running out of money for the SCHIP program by July. The administration was planning to cover our SCHIP program using regular Medicaid money, which would have hurt our budget neutrality calculations, in addition to costing more state funds.
Thanks to Senators Kennedy and Kerry and our entire House delegation, who fought hard to make sure the SCHIP funds for Massachusetts was included in the final bill.
The supplemental funding is a temporary band aid to a successful and cost-effective program that provides low-cost and comprehensive health care to children. The next step for SCHIP is reauthorization of the program. The Senate Finance Committee is tentatively scheduled to mark-up an SCHIP bill on Thursday, June 7th. Once the bill passes out of Committee, it will likely be heard on the Senate floor for debate within a week or so. As soon as this happens, it will be important to contact your Senators to voice your support and/or concerns about the bill. For more information, please visit the New England Alliance for Children’s Health.
Mindy Cohen
