Voices for Ohio’s Children Applauds House Passage of SCHIP Reauthorization

Essential progress toward closing the gap for Ohio’s 156,000 uninsured children

Voices for Ohio’s Children applauds the U.S. House of Representatives for voting to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Twelve of Ohio’s Congressional members, both Republicans and Democrats, supported the bill.

“Expanding coverage to children through Medicaid and SCHIP has been the most successful and efficient health care reform in years,” said Voices for Ohio’s Children Executive Director Amy Swanson. “We’re pleased that seventy percent of Ohio’s Congressional members understand that SCHIP helps Ohio’s children grow up healthy and strong and become productive citizens.”

In the FY 2008-2009 Ohio budget process that concluded in June, bipartisan state legislative leaders joined with Governor Strickland to expand Ohio’s SCHIP program, Healthy Start, to include children living in families up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. That provision, which takes effect January 1, 2008, is expected to provide coverage to approximately 36,000 currently uninsured children. Congressional reauthorization of SCHIP provides additional funds to support this expansion, as well as funds to reach and enroll an estimated 109,000 uninsured Ohio children already eligible for Healthy Start.

The SCHIP reauthorization bill now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to be passed as early as this week. The measure then faces a threatened veto by President Bush.

“Ohio’s leaders know what’s best for Ohio’s kids, and they’ve said that covering Ohio kids with SCHIP is the best thing for our state,” said Swanson. “Tonight, Ohio’s Congressional leaders did their part by voting to reauthorize SCHIP. Now it’s time for President Bush to do his part by ending the current political gamesmanship and signing this bill into law.”

After a spirited debate, the House passed the SCHIP Reauthorization conference report in a decisive vote of  265-159 with one Democratic member voting present. 220 Democrats and 45 Republicans voted for the bill and 8 Democrats and 151 Republicans voted against it.  We are pleased that members of Ohio’s congressional delegation voted to support strong SCHIP reauthorization that included $35 billion in additional funding to support children’s health care coverage. 

We urge you to call the Ohio members who voted in support of SCHIP Reauthorization and say THANK YOU.  We need them to continue to support this legislation since the President has threatened to veto the legislation.  For those members who did not support the legislation, we urge you to call them and express your disappointment. 

To view additional information about the SCHIP compromise, please follow the links listed below:

Roll Call Vote - House

Summary of SCHIP Agreement

SCHIP Compromise Section-by-Section Summary

Projected FY2008 Allotments Under Compromise Proposal, Compared to FY2007 Projected Federal SCHIP Spending and Projected Allotments Under Senate-Passed H.R. 976

CHIP FY2008 Funding Under Bipartisan Bill