JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune capital bureau | Posted: Friday, July 27, 2007 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - Because of a struggle in Congress over funding for children's health insurance programs, Wyoming officials have put on hold a planned expansion of the state's Kid Care insurance program that was to include 3,700 poor, working parents.
The Legislature in the 2006 budget session authorized expansion of the program, but the federal government has taken no action on the state's request for a waiver so it can begin, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said this week.
In a letter to U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the Democratic governor noted the lack of action on the waiver and expressed his worry over financing for the program and the possibility it won't be renewed this year.
President Bush has threatened to veto the Senate's bill to pay for renewal and expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program with a higher excise tax on cigarettes.
If the bill doesn't become law, the 5,700 children enrolled in Wyoming could lose their coverage beginning as early as Oct. 1, Freudenthal said.
"It's an incredibly serious problem," the governor said.
"The SCHIP program is one federal program that does work," he said. "I can't believe the president and the Congress won't work this out in time, but when you watch what they're both saying, it appears adult supervision would be in order back there."
In his letter to Enzi, the governor said the Congressional Research Services estimated the program would need $12.1 billion over five years to maintain coverage for the children enrolled today.
The Bush administration is recommending an additional $5 billion a year.
Freudenthal said the $5 billion a year would not maintain the program with the current enrollment. But he did not specify what the dollar figure should be.
Enzi, meanwhile, said Thursday through his press secretary, Coy Knobel, that expanding the program to cover adults is becoming a problem.
As a ranking member of the Senate Health Committee, Enzi is working with members of his own party and colleagues on the other side of the aisle and in the House to not lose sight of the goal to get kids covered by health insurance, he said.
Enzi and U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said the Senate is expected to begin work on the child health insurance proposals next week on the floor before the August recess.
"I think Wyoming has done it right," Barrasso said Thursday in a telephone interview. "You have to put the kids first."
He said he supported the program when he was a member of the state Senate.
The purpose of the program is to insure children from families that are doing too well to qualify for Medicaid.
"The concern here is the overall price tag," Barrasso said. "One of the proposals I saw extends it to families making $80,000 a year."
Wyoming did it right, he said, by making the program available to families with incomes less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level - about $40,000 a year for a family of four.
"We have to be fiscally responsible. We want to help the kids, but it's not a program designed to help everybody," Barrasso said.
U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee which has been engaged with the children's health care program for several months. Cubin supported SCHIP when it as created in 1997 for children who did not qualify for Medicaid yet whose families could not afford health care on their own, and she continues to support it, said her press secretary, Alison McGuire.
"Unfortunately, Washington Democrats are taking a successful program like SCHIP, turning it on its head, and using it as a vehicle to create a massive new entitlement program for upper- and middle-income Americans," McGuire said. "Democrats have proposed a $50 billion program expansion that would make SCHIP available to people as old as 25 and even to illegal immigrants. To fund their plan, Democrats have proposed massive tax hikes and cuts to important Medicare Advantage programs."
Cubin has been staying in Casper in recent weeks due to the serious illness of her husband, Fritz.
In addition to the 5,700 children already enrolled, another 6,000 children in Wyoming are eligible but are not enrolled in the insurance program, said Patricia Guzman, manager of the State Children's Health Insurance Program at the Wyoming Department of Health.
The 2006 Legislature authorized spending of $30 million for the two-year biennium, but that includes $3 million for the 3,700 parents who were to be enrolled.
The current match is 65 percent federal and 35 percent state money. The federal share for 2007 is $6.9 million.
"We will need more than that to be able to run the program," Guzman said Thursday.
Capital bureau reporter Joan Barron can be reached at (307) 632-1244 or at joan.barron@casperstartribune.net.
* Last we knew: Congress and the Bush administration are at odds over funding for children's health insurance programs.
* The latest: Insurance for 5,700 Wyoming children enrolled in the state's program is in jeopardy, along with planned coverage for poor, working parents, state officials say.
* What's next: The Senate is expected to begin work on child health insurance proposals next week before the August recess.]]>