Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Bush Admin In Fight Over Children’s Health Insurance -- Will They Relent?

It appears that the Bush Administration may be backing down a little from it’s hard stance against providing extended childrens’ health insurance. They have mandated that the individual states must carry this burden alone. After a long fight, state officials are receiving indications from the federal government that the Bush administration may start taking a “softer tone” from a rule made last August, which stated that the states themselves must shoulder the costs of childrens ’health insurance for 95% of the poor before they are allowed to cover other children under SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program).

Since that time, many states have challenged this rule by filing suit against the Federal Government. The suits are asking for federal support that allows states to expand childrens’ health insurance coverage to include families having incomes above the unrealistic federal poverty level. As the Wall Street Journal puts it: States will now be given more flexibility in meeting that requirement, which could allow them to proceed with stalled plans to cover children[‘s health insurance] from families that make more than twice the federal poverty level (a bit over $40,000 a year for a family of four).

All this is coming about since a ruling from the GAO (Government Accountability Office) that the Bush Administration could not legally enforce its guidelines without approval from Congress. Not likely, considering that Congress has already been trying at length to greatly expand the reach of SCHIP. Every time Congress has submitted this bill, the Bush Administration has vetoed it.

Kerry Weems, the acting CMS administrator responded yesterday, stating that the 95% mandate was only meant to be a “guideline”. They have backed down from calling it a rule. Mr. Weems explained that the “policy guidance” would be used on an “individualized state-by-state basis.” The administration is afraid that families may start dropping their private health insurance so they could get free government children’s health insurance, if the rule was relaxed. Some high-level administrators are still skeptical of the softening, concerned that the Bush Administration is only offering “window dressing” in order to get around the legal challenges. The “guidelines” may still be a factor in limiting federal aid to a greater number of children than presently served.