10th Anniversary of CHIP Celebrated on Capitol Hill

Aug 21, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) The Children's Health Insurance Program celebrated its tenth anniversary on Wednesday. U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, who co-authored the bill, says it is one of the most important achievements of his political career.

"Virtually everybody admits that CHIP has worked well. Virtually everybody wants it to continue. Where you get into fights is over management, you get into fights is over costs, you get into fights over the match that's there, you get into fights over people who think the federal government is the best answer to everything," said Hatch, speaking on Capitol Hill. "Well, I don't believe that; I think sometimes the federal government is the problem."

Hatch commended Utah's leadership for implementing the program as he envisioned it would work. Each state has slightly different rules for CHIP, and Hatch says this is exactly what he intended when he drafted the bill.

"I designed it so the states could have an awful lot of control over it, even though the federal government has basic issues," said Hatch. "The states control the majority of the program. Naturally there's a desire back there on the part of the more liberal community to have the federal government have more control of it. And every time we do that, we have a lesser of a program."

CHIP was recently at the center of a power struggle in Congress. The program was eventually reauthorized, but it will come up for renewal again next year. This, Hatch says, is crucial to allow the program to be revisited periodically and adjusted, if necessary.

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