Vitter Introduces Alternative to Expansive Democratic SCHIP Bill

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sen. David Vitter today highlighted his alternative to the current expansive version of the Democrat’s State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Vitter believes that his Enhancing Health Care Coverage for Children Act will ensure that our most needy children get the quality health care they need without creating a backdoor to universal, government-run health care like that called for by some of his Democratic colleagues.

"I have serious concerns that other proposals to extend SCHIP are little more than a backdoor to government-run health care,” said Vitter. “SCHIP was originally intended to ensure that the medical needs of the poorest children were met, but we have now strayed beyond that intent. What we are looking at now is a plan to loosen SCHIP restrictions, bringing SCHIP to high-income families and even illegal immigrants.”

As it was originally envisioned, SCHIP was intended to target low-income children of families who require assistance because they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but earn too little to afford private health coverage for their children. Vitter believes his bill would accomplish this goal by requiring each state’s SCHIP plan to specify how it will achieve coverage for 85 percent of eligible low-income children in the state.

“Instead of helping ensure that as many of these children as possible are covered, some SCHIP proposals would allow the states to expand their programs to cover upper middle class families without requiring that the poorest children are covered first,” added Vitter. “In fact, some plans would allow a family of four in New York or New Jersey with an annual income of more than $88,000 into a program designed to help our most needy.”

Vitter said that rather than extend coverage well beyond what most Louisianans would consider needy or truly poor families, his bill actively uses the current SCHIP program to ensure those who truly need this coverage are included. His bill would also apply Medicaid citizenship documentation requirements to ensure that illegal aliens cannot obtain SCHIP benefits.

“The Medicaid citizenship documentation requirement is a concern because other SCHIP proposals loosen the restrictions – making it easier for illegal immigrants to receive federal benefits,” Vitter said. “We have a serious problem with illegal immigration in our country, and, now more than ever, we should be taking steps to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving federal benefits so we can use the funds to insure more needy children, not loosening restrictions.”

Also, many of the new SCHIP proposals Congress will consider do nothing to minimize “crowd-out” – using government programs and taxpayer dollars to pay for people who can otherwise afford and have their own private coverage.

“Under the Democratic SCHIP proposal passed out of the Senate Finance Committee, 400,000 children are expected to drop their existing private coverage to join the government-run plan,” said Vitter. “This amounts to little more than a replacement of private insurance with government-run health care. The last thing any of us need is to insert further bureaucracy into our health care, so my bill would take steps to keep families with private coverage in their existing health plans by prohibiting payment for child health assistance for families whose income exceeds 250 percent of the poverty line.”