November 27, 2007 – Like many states throughout the country, California is beginning to be impacted by President Bush’s unwillingness to sign a bill expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
California is set to run out of money to pay for the popular children’s health insurance program in June, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article says state officials are preparing for the shortfall by deciding within the next two weeks whether to stop enrolling new children and send letters to 56,600 families telling them their children will lose health coverage at the end of the year.
California isn’t alone. A federal study released earlier this year says twenty-one states will run out of money for children’s health insurance in the coming year. Nine of the twenty-one states are expected to exhaust their funds as soon as March, according to the Congressional Research Service. Those states include Alaska, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
The Senate and House, for the second time, recently passed legislation providing an additional four million children with health insurance by expanding SCHIP by $35 billion.
The new SCHIP legislation contains only minor changes from the version Bush vetoed, containing the original funding levels to provide more than 10 million children with health insurance.
Read more here.
