WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed and President Barack Obama has signed legislation to reauthorize what is now called the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Now public law, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 will provide health insurance to over 11 million American children in low income families.
The bill includes critical provisions that eliminate the five year waiting period currently imposed on legal immigrant children and pregnant women before they are eligible for health coverage under Medicaid and CHIP. In addition, the bill includes measures to ensure children are afforded dental coverage as part of CHIP, even if they have private health coverage.
Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus, a bipartisan children’s advocacy organization, made the following comments upon passage by the House. As a leading advocate of the renewal of the CHIP program, Lesley was invited to attend the Presidential signing ceremony this afternoon at the White House.
“Today, the Congress and the President delivered a win for our nation’s children by enacting a strong renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. This law contains critical provisions to ease administrative barriers to covering eligible children through ‘express lane enrollment’ measures. We are also pleased that this new law will allow states to ensure health coverage for legal immigrant children and pregnant women by ending the current five-year waiting period before these populations can get health coverage. Further, provisions in this law making dental coverage available as part of CHIP are crucial to ensure our children remain healthy and productive. Indeed, the policies in this legislation ensure that every child in every community has the health and dental care they need to achieve their full potential.
“This law also provides grants to community-based organizations to improve outreach and enrollment activities, among other measures that improve health care access and coverage for our nation’s most precious resource, our children.
“No government program has been more successful in expanding children’s healthcare coverage than CHIP. In these dire economic times, this program is a critical lifeline for millions of American families. As the economy continues to worsen, more families will become dependant on safety net programs such as CHIP to keep their families out of poverty. As policymakers now begin to address covering all children and all Americans in a new national health reform effort, we are heartened to see CHIP passed as an important step in a positive direction.”
The legislation calls for a 61 cent increase to the federal tobacco tax, which will provide $32.3 billion over four and a half years.
Recently, First Focus led an impressive coalition of 360 state and national organizations in urging the Senate to approve a strong renewal of SCHIP. Specifically, in a letter to the Senate, the coalition urged Senators to defeat any amendments or provisions that would impose new coverage limitations on children, create additional bureaucratic and paperwork burdens upon children, as well as those that undermine efforts to simplify enrollment and outreach efforts, particularly for the millions of low-income children currently eligible for but unenrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP.
A recent national poll by First Focus has found that Americans support SCHIP renewal by a margin of more than eight to one, 82-10 percent. In addition, by a margin of 79-15 percent, a majority of Americans favor expanding SCHIP to cover legal immigrant children. Finally, the poll found that 65-10 percent of Americans are more supportive of SCHIP when knowing the funding would come form an increase in the federal tobacco tax.