Advocates Argue for More CHIP Money

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) On September 30th, the state-run Children's Health Insurance Program is set to expire, leaving millions of children without basic medical coverage. The U.S. House and Senate both passed versions of a bill to reauthorize the program last week, but the House version calls for 20-billion more dollars than the Senate version. Congressman Jim Matheson says more is better:

"It's estimated there are another 5 million kids, at least, who could qualify with additional funding for this program," says Matheson. "If it comes down to a question of whether or not to spend more money to cover these kids, I'll stand on the side of these kids every time."

The House CHIP bill puts 50-billion new dollars into the CHIP program over the next five years. A Senate version sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch calls for 35-billion and Congress will have to reconcile the two when it reconvenes in September. Either way, President Bush has threatened to veto any measure that puts more than five-billion new dollars into the program, saying such expansion moves too close to universal health care. Conservatives criticize the program because many states have expanded it to cover adults. Utah is not one of those states, says State Healthcare Finance Director Michael Hales:

"The demographics of our state and the funding available has let us focus the program exclusively on children," says Hales. "We have had periods where the money wasn't sufficient to cover the kids and we have had black-out periods where we couldn't take applications."

This year, Utah lawmakers put four million new state dollars toward CHIP and enrollment re-opened in July. Since then, Hales says nearly three-thousand new children have enrolled in the program, which offers health insurance for children of working-poor families.

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