AAFP Rallies Support for SCHIP Reauthorization

The AAFP has issued an Action Alert asking Academy members to contact their U.S. senators and urge them to support legislation reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. Without congressional reauthorization, SCHIP will expire at the end of March.

Earlier today, the House passed its version of the SCHIP bill (at the THOMAS Web site, type "H.R. 2" in the search box after selecting "Bill Number"), which reauthorizes and expands the program through September 2013 with an additional $35 billion in funding. The Senate Finance Committee is expected to approve a similar bill (at the THOMAS Web site, type "S. 82" in the search box after selecting "Bill Number") reauthorizing the program for the same period with an additional $31.5 billion.

Both the House and Senate bills call for an expansion of the program, which currently provides health care coverage to about 7 million low-income and uninsured children. The bills would extend health care benefits to the uninsured and underinsured, a position the AAFP supports.

"The proposed SCHIP legislation would continue to provide essential health care coverage to children currently enrolled in the program and allow an additional 4 million children to qualify for coverage," says the Action Alert.

Both bills propose using a 62-cent-per-pack cigarette tax to finance SCHIP expansion. However, the House legislation, if enacted, would raise an additional $3.5 billion for SCHIP expansion by placing new restrictions on so-called specialty hospitals. In addition, the House legislation would allow the children of legal immigrants who have been in the country fewer than five years to enroll in the program.

President Bush previously vetoed SCHIP bills that would have expanded the program to $60 billion during a five-year period, thus forcing Congress to pass a much smaller 18-month, $1.6 billion increase for the program in late 2007.