President Obama on Wednesday signed into law a bill (HR 2) that will reauthorize and expand SCHIP to an additional four million children, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports. Obama said that expanding the program is “the first step” to achieving universal health coverage in the U.S. (Freking/Elliot, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 2/5). The House cleared the final version of the measure by a vote of 290-135 earlier in the day. Forty Republicans voted in favor of the bill, and 133 voted against it. Two House Democrats voted against the measure (Lengell, Washington Times, 2/5). The Senate approved the legislation last week.

SCHIP was set to expire on March 31 without congressional action. Under the bill, children in families with incomes of up to three times the federal poverty level will qualify for the program. New Jersey and New York state will be exempt from those income eligibility requirements and will be allowed to expand coverage to children in higher-income families (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 2/4). The bill requires states to offer dental care through SCHIP, and allows them to extend dental benefits to children who have private coverage that does not include dental coverage (Pear, New York Times, 2/5). In addition, the measure generally requires states to provide equal coverage of mental and physical illnesses under SCHIP.

The bill also eliminates a five-year waiting period for documented immigrant children and pregnant women to become eligible for the program. The measure requires states to verify that SCHIP beneficiaries are documented immigrants or citizens, but it allows states to try to verify eligibility by matching an applicant’s name and Social Security number against federal records, rather than requiring documents proving citizenship (New York Times, 2/5).

The measure, which calls for increasing SCHIP spending by $32.8 billion over four-and-a-half years, will be funded by a 62-cent-per-pack increase in the federal cigarette tax. The bill will provide coverage for the additional four million children by 2013, while continuing coverage for seven million children already in the program (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 2/5).

Courtesy Of: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com Article Date: 06 Feb 2009 - 5:00 PST

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