House OKs $50B expansion of CHIP

WASHINGTON — The House approved a $50 billion bill to expand the Children's Health Insurance Program, but Utah's two Republican House members opposed it.

In a lengthy and heated debate on the House floor, Democrats argued about the need to pass the bill to help insure poor children while Republicans tried numerous tactics — including adjourning the Congress — to delay progress on it.

The bill passed 225 to 204, largely along party lines. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, voted in favor of the bill.

"This bill extends a proven program that provides access to the basic health care we want all our children to have," Matheson said. "Nothing is more important in Utah than protecting our kids."

Matheson said the bill was "win-win" because the program's increase would be funded mainly through a tax on cigarettes.

"Increasing the price of cigarettes discourages would-be teen smoking," Matheson said.

"Fewer kids that start smoking means healthier adults, with less smoking-caused disease to treat."

But the high price tag and the tobacco tax are part of the reason Rep. Chris Cannon , R-Utah, and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, voted against the bill. They do not oppose helping low-income children get health insurance, but they objected strongly to how the bill was funding the program.

"This goal of the program is a noble one and it has been working, but this bill represents a huge increase in federal spending, $45 billion beyond what the president has proposed, and seems like a back door to a massive government-run, government-mandated health insurance plan for everyone," Bishop said. "It's basically Hillary Care revisited."

Bishop said through the bill, 15,000 seniors in his district would be cut from Medicare based on Medicare cuts the Democrats proposed to pay for the increase to CHIP.

"Cutting Medicare to fund CHIP is just dumb," Bishop said. "I can't support that. I also can't support the new tax on private health insurance, and the only way the Democrats' tobacco tax increase will fund this thing is if we somehow get 22 million new smokers."

Cannon also did not like the tie to a tobacco tax, saying the number of new smokers needed to fund the expansion would only add to health problems down the line. Urging people to quit smoking would only reduce the amount of money available to the program, he said.

He said resources to fund an expansion in CHIP have to come from somewhere but there are limits to how many new taxes can be created to fund it.

He said during the August recess he anticipates people will realize there is more to the bill than simply reauthorizing CHIP.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., said, "Today's debate comes down to this: Do you favor big tobacco or children?"