Bunning Offers Amendment To SCHIP

Mr. President, I would like to offer an amendment to the SCHIP bill. This is the same amendment I offered during the Finance Committee’s consideration of this legislation.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how the Baucus bill puts the focus for SCHIP back on low-income children.

So much talk, in fact, that you would hardly know that the Baucus bill allows certain states to provide families making up to $70,000 or $80,000 a year in income with government run healthcare.

Let’s start from the beginning.

The way the SCHIP and Medicaid programs work is that states get federal matching dollars to help fund their programs.

The SCHIP match from the federal government is higher than a state’s Medicaid match.

This means that for my state, the federal government match for Medicaid is about 70% while the state pays for the remaining 30%.

For SCHIP, the federal match is 80%, while the state makes up the remaining 20%.

SCHIP was intended to help states provide healthcare coverage to children in families whose incomes were below 200% of the federal poverty level. These families were likely working, but making too much money to qualify for Medicaid and couldn’t afford private health insurance.

I’d like to note that 200% of the federal poverty level is about $41,000 a year in income for a family of four.

The Baucus bill allows states to expand their SCHIP programs and receive the higher SCHIP matching rate for families with incomes up to 300% of the poverty level – or almost $62,000 for a family of four.

Personally, I think that that, in and of its self, is too high, especially when the national median income in this country was about $46,000 in 2005.

In the Baucus bill, states that choose to go above 300% of poverty would receive their Medicaid matching rate for those families, which remember is the lower reimbursement rate.

However, the Baucus bill thinks that families in New Jersey and New York deserve special treatment under SCHIP. The bill provides an exemption for states that have already gone above or are currently trying to go above 300% of poverty level for SCHIP coverage.

New Jersey already provides coverage for families up to 350% of poverty. New York is working to get approval to extend coverage up to 400% of poverty.

I want to make sure everyone understands:

• 400% of the poverty level is $82,600 a year for a family of four;

• 350% of the poverty level is $72,275.

Are we really going to be providing government health care for families making seventy to eighty thousand dollars a year?

My amendment is fairly simple. It strikes the exemption the Baucus bill has given to just New York and New Jersey so they have to play by the same rules as every other state.

If these two states want to provide health care coverage to families above 300% of the poverty level, they can do so – they just cannot get the higher SCHIP matching rate. They would get their Medicaid matching rate.

That, at least, levels the playing field.

There will obviously be some small savings from this. My amendment would take this savings and provide additional money to the outreach and enrollment grants.

Some people will try to say that it’s more expensive to live in these two states than in other states, and that is probably true in certain areas.

However, SCHIP is a federal program, and all states should play by the same rules.

Also, these two states can still cover these higher-income families if they choose. They just have to get the lower Medicaid matching rate to do so.

If New York and New Jersey feel so strongly about letting families making $70,000 or $80,000 a year have government healthcare, then the state should be willing to pay a little more from their own tax revenue.

The last time I checked, money doesn’t grow on trees around here.

The Baucus bill is requiring people in other states like Kentucky, New Mexico, Florida and Maine to pay more so New York and New Jersey can cover families at these high incomes. To me, that’s grossly unfair.

Some people may also try to argue that New York is only thinking about going to 400% of the poverty level and they would have to get a waiver or plan approved by the Department of Health and Human Services for this increase.

Okay, so then why give them this special protection in the Baucus bill? Why create special rules for New York, when they haven’t even gotten approved yet?

To me, it is outrageous that a program designed for lower-income kids is being expanded to include families at 350% or 400% of the poverty level. That’s too high, and it’s unfair to ask people in other states to pay for these types of expenses.

So with my amendment, you have two options:

• More money for outreach and enrollment efforts and requiring all states to play by the same rules, or
• Or covering kids in families that most of us probably don’t consider low-income – those making up to $72,000 or $82,000 a year for a family of four.

Thank you, and I reserve the balance of my time.