Nearly 36,000 Utah children could benefit from SCHIP reauthorization

Nearly 36,000 of the 107,000 Utah children without medical insurance could be covered under a reauthorization of a federal program that has passed the U.S. House and is now before the Senate, a national health policy watchdog group reports.

That's a 34 percent reduction for low-income working families in Utah, and it's the first step toward actual health-care system reform locally and nationwide endorsed by Families USA and other local children's advocates.

"The reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program is a major victory because it will help working families provide their children with the health care they need when they need it, which in turn helps children grow up healthy and become contributing citizens," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.

The increase in medical insurance is being underwritten by a 61-cents-per-pack cigarette tax and other proportional increases on tobacco products figured into the reauthorization. The tax increase would bring the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1.

The Democrat-based proposal, which was passed twice in 2007 and vetoed both times by President George W. Bush because he said it would encourage families who can afford private coverage to move the government plan, was approved 289-139 in the House. It would add $32.3 billion over four years to the program.

Members of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday voted 12-7 to approve legislation to reauthorize SCHIP following lengthy partisan debate on various eligibility requirements.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who helped create SCHIP 12 years ago, voted against moving the measure forward, saying the original legislation struck "fine balance between providing health-care coverage for children of the working poor and balancing the federal budget."

"Unfortunately, the original intent that has worked so well for more than 10 years is lost in the partisan amendments found in the current version," Hatch said.

Hatch told the Deseret News that the government can't afford the reauthorization as written, adding that the government struggled to pay for SCHIP in good financial times when fewer and lower-income children qualified for it.

"I do not know how we can keep adding more and more people when we first need to take care of the children the program was intended to help," he said.

Hatch and others are referring to so-called "crowd-out," Pollack said.