The Pressure to Flip on S-SCHIP
As soon as today, the House of Representatives will vote to override President Bush’s veto of State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-SCHIP) expansion bill. The bill passed earlier this year with help from moderate Republicans – most notably Senator’s Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) in the US Senate.
The concept of the SCHIP was originally to fund health insurance for children in families that earned too much to be Medicaid eligible but were to poor to pay for insurance in the individual market, or they worked in a low-wage position in which employee health benefits were not provided.
The program has been somewhat successful in the expanding health insurance coverage to these groups of people. However, about half of those joining the program were dropping their private coverage in favor of “free government insurance.” In addition, states, Illinois being a chief culprit, were expanding the program ... Read More...
